Auburn, Alabama are at home at the top

The No. 1 Tigers beat the No. 2 Crimson Tide in a tribute to C.M. Newton's vision, from 50 years ago.

Johni Broome

It’s basketball. You don’t really want to make it an Iron Bowl. But Alabama clanged, bricked and ricocheted 21 of 26 three-point attempts Saturday afternoon in Tuscaloosa. It did so in its moment of peak visibility, since the Crimson Tide was ranked No. 2 nationally. Auburn, its cowering little brother on so many fields of endeavor, was ranked No. 1. Such a matchup never had happened between Southeastern Conference teams, and the public was really and truly plugged in, not just because spring football hadn’t yet started. The get-in price at Coleman Coliseum Saturday morning was $383.

Auburn won, 94-85, and coach Bruce Pearl said it meant the Tigers were truly No. 1 because they wore that badge and played up to it. He also said they had to be better for “the next time, and then maybe the next time.” The Tide and Tigers play in Auburn on March 1, and might play again in the SEC tournament, which also might be the best college tournament of the season, including the NCAAs. But then Auburn and Alabama could even meet in April. On Saturday the winner was further validated and the loser was undiminished. The game was as good as the context.

One can’t imagine what C.M. Newton would have thought. Alabama hired him to coach basketball in 1968. Newton had been successful at Transylvania College in Kentucky, and Adolph Rupp recommended him to athletic director/football coach/emperor Bear Bryant. Newton asked Bryant if he might be allowed to recruit Black players, seeing as how there were a lot of good ones in the state and that Alabama had none. Bryant said yes. He said it would be easier to vault that hurdle in basketball than in football.

C.M. Newton

The next spring, Newton recruited Wendell Hudson from Birmingham’s Parker High. Hudson didn’t worry about recriminations but his parents did. When Hudson’s dad asked Newton how Wendell would be treated by fans and other students, Newton replied, “I don’t know.” That eruption of honesty deepened the trust in the room. Newton added that Hudson would be looked after, and Hudson went to Alabama. Later he became the first Crimson Tide athlete, in any sport, to have his number retired.

But Bryant was right. The populace could shrug off the changing times in basketball. Who really cared? The important thing was keeping all the faces white inside the football helmets. As has been chronicled, Bryant arranged for USC to visit Alabama in 1972 because he suspected the Trojans, with Sam Cunningham and Co., would beat the Tide so soundly that he could integrate the team out of necessity. It turned out exactly that way.

Meanwhile, Hudson got along fine. There was the potential for tension when he came to the Paul W. Bryant Dining Hall for the first time, but Hudson emerged from the cafeteria line with a heaping plate and a smile. The servers, all Black, had made sure he got enough.

Point guard Raymond Odums followed Hudson. Charles Cleveland, who would become a three-time All-SEC pick, followed Odums, as did center Leon (Grandpa) Douglas. T.R. Dunn and Charles Russell came next. Anthony Murray was right behind. In late 1973, Alabama started five black players, long before that would happen at North Carolina or Duke or Indiana or Kentucky or, for that matter, UCLA. In 1976, Alabama, again with an all-Black starting five, ripped Phil Ford, Mitch Kupchak and North Carolina, 79-64, in an NCAA Sweet 16 game. It severely threatened Indiana in the regional final and came within six points of handing the eventual NCAA champs their only loss.

Newton would later coach at Vanderbilt and become Kentucky’s athletic director, where he hired Tubby Smith to coach the men’s team and win the 1998 NCAA championship. He also hired Bernadette Locke-Mattox as the first black women’s coach. But Newton’s sizeable imagination probably didn’t have room for the spectacle on Saturday. Or for the news, last week, that Alabama will build a $60 million practice facility for the men’s and women’s teams.

Hudson’s legacy was surprisingly durable. The Tide became a frequent Top 20 team and made nine Sweet 16s before it reached its first Final Four last season. For Auburn it was different. Ralph “Shug” Jordan was the famous football coach, but he was the basketball coach first, and also coached hoops at Georgia. Rupp said he was equally good at both. But then Joel Eaves was an assistant coach on Jordan’s football staff before he went 213-100 on the hardwood and brought Auburn an SEC championship.

The Tigers reached a different realm when Charles Barkley, the Round Mound Of Rebound, wowed SEC audiences with his unlikely levitations. Then Auburn reached a Final Eight after Barkley left, in 1986. There were several hits and misses until the Tigers hired Bruce Pearl, who was fired by Tennessee in 2011. Pearl had lied to NCAA investigators about a relatively minor recruiting violation, and the NCAA hit him with a 3-year “show cause” penalty, which meant any school that hired him in that time would have explain why he shouldn’t bring his probation with him. Auburn hired him almost three years later, and Pearl has taken the Tigers to a Final Four and has broken Eaves’ record for wins.

Pearl’s teams have always been as combative as he is, and he can identify players and project them into a system. That’s crucial in today’s cherry-picking world, and Oats has the same feel at Alabama. Johni Broome is Auburn’s national player of the year candidate, and he came from Morehead State. Shooter Miles Kelly came from Georgia Tech. Denver Jones, an ace defender, came from Florida International; sixth man Chaney Johnson, from Alabama-Huntsville. The Tigers are deep and well-constructed, with the 6-foot-10 Broome serving as the lead scorer, rebounder and assist man, and the 6-foot-11 Dylan Cardwell as the lane patrolman. Pearl did fend off the nation’s recruiters to get freshman Tashaad Pettiford from Jersey City, N.J., and he brought 13 of Auburn’s 42 bench points.

Alabama also combs the nation’s rosters to shake out loose stars in waiting. Mark Sears came from Ohio U., Grant Nelson from North Dakota State, Cliff Omoruyi from Rutgers, Chris Youngblood from South Florida and Aden Holloway from — what do you know? — Auburn. The Tide averages over 90 points a game, lives for the 3-pointer in transition, and overwhelms teams with less talent. But ‘Bama quickly fell behind 9-0, never got its crowd in a lather until late in the second half, and failed to defend simple pick-and-rolls when stops were imperative. Auburn was the calmer, more purposeful squad for 40 minutes.

The Tigers are 22-2 and are 14-2 against Quad 1 teams, the top quarter of Division I. They had wins over Houston, Iowa State and Purdue before they even got to the SEC grinder. They have lost to Duke and Florida, both of whom would be top seeds in the NCAA tournament if the picks were made today.

The NCAA released their top 16 on Saturday, and the SEC has three No. 1 seeds (Auburn, Alabama, Florida) and two No. 2s (Texas A&M and Tennessee). In the analytics-based KenPom ratings, Auburn is No. 1, Alabama (21-4) No. 6, and seven other league teams are in the Top 30. You wonder if there’s collateral damage from these twice-weekly passion plays, if emotional overload will set in when tournament time arrives. Last year Auburn lost a first-round game to Yale. We’ll see, but SEC fans should savor the richest winter that any major conference has ever had. Even the bestial Big East of the 80s had cupcakes like Seton Hall and, yes, Connecticut. In this SEC, Oklahoma was 13-0 with wins over Arizona, Louisville and Michigan. Then league play began. The Sooners are 16-9.

There were no reports of any disgusted Alabama fans poisoning the big trees at Toomer’s Corner in downtown Auburn, which happened after Auburn’s famous “Kick Six” Iron Bowl victory in 2013. Besides, as Pearl said, this was merely a preface to a strong mini-series. Because Auburn’s Neville Arena only seats 9,121, the get-in price for the first rematch is already $500. Newton died in 2018, but if he were around they’d probably let him in. He of all people knew that history, and the chance to create it, is priceless.