'Bigger than basketball': How Auburn built a winning team in one year

AUBURN, Ala. – As the final seconds ticked away and the clock hit zero, confetti shot out onto the court at Neville Arena. A blizzard of orange and blue engulfed the Auburn players. And then one by one, they climbed the ladder and cut off a piece of the net, each taking with them a piece of history.

This 2021-22 Auburn team was the SEC regular season champion.

It was a similar feeling on March 31, 2019. Auburn beat Kentucky in overtime, and the players each cut down a piece of the net in Kansas City to celebrate winning the Midwest Regional and securing the program’s first trip to the Final Four. For Jared Harper, Bryce Brown, Anfernee McLemore and the others on that team, it was the second time cutting down nets in less than a month. The same group also won the SEC Tournament championship that season. 

But that team was built differently. Brown was in his fourth year at Auburn, Harper in his third. Nearly everybody was back from the year before when the Tigers won the SEC regular season crown and played in the NCAA Tournament. This year’s Auburn team was primarily assembled last spring, and five of the top six guys in the rotation were all new this season, including the team’s top four scorers.

Different hometowns, different backgrounds, different skill sets. Yet, they all came to Auburn with one common goal.

“Our goal was to win a national championship,” said guard Zep Jasper, a graduate transfer from College of Charleston. “BP (Bruce Pearl) recruited us to all get along with each other. He didn't recruit players to be selfish. There's nothing like having team players on a team, players who want to win. I think the way BP recruited us – he recruited us to be dogs, he recruited us to win a national championship.”

Jasper still remembers his first practice at Auburn. It was in the middle of the summer. He brought his patented energy and intensity, especially on the defensive end, and it made an impact on his teammates.

At that time, they were still figuring things out. Jasper came in from Charleston. Wendell Green Jr. arrived from Eastern Kentucky, K.D. Johnson from Georgia. Big man Walker Kessler transferred to Auburn from North Carolina. And Jabari Smith, the headliner of the group, was the highest-decorated freshman in program history.

The key that summer was not necessarily time spent on the court as much as it was time spent off the court. Going out to eat together. Playing video games together. Playing paintball together.

“Everybody came together in the summertime,” Johnson said. “We started doing team bonding stuff and getting to know each other. There’s a lot of different personalities on the team, so we just had to come together as one, get to know each other and talk behind the scenes other than just in the gym. We hang out all the time.”

That team camaraderie continued to evolve into the fall and showed up once Auburn started playing games. The Tigers won a couple games to start the season. When they lost a heartbreaker in double overtime to UConn in the first game of the Battle 4 Atlantis, they didn’t flinch. Facing adversity for the first time, they rallied together and won the next two games in the Bahamas.

From there, the wins kept coming. The Tigers dismantled Nebraska in Atlanta. They came from behind to win a tough road game at Saint Louis. They opened SEC play with an impressive victory over LSU. They went to Tuscaloosa and won. They beat Kentucky at home and then put up a 100-spot on Alabama to sweep the season series. Nineteen straight victories at one point, and the first No. 1 ranking in Auburn history.

“Winning is No. 1 on our team,” Green said. “We all understand we have six or seven guys that can go get 20 points a night, but we just have to share it around. Whoever is on, that’s who is on, and we’ve got to trust each other. That’s what we’ve been doing all year.”

“Your teammates are all you got,” added Kessler. “You and your teammates out on the battlefield, that’s who you’ve got to rely on. That’s so important to have that camaraderie and truly when things get tough, come together and get the win.”

On the night Auburn dropped 100 points on Alabama, Smith looked up to the home crowd after the national anthem. He did a full 360, taking it all in as he stood there.

“I do that before every game,” Smith said. “Just looking around and seeing like, 'I'm here.' Just taking it all in and knowing that those people are here to see us. They're here to see us play hard, they're here to see us put on a show and play to win. You've got to play hard every play, every possession, for them.

“It's just taking it in and always knowing that I'm playing for more than myself.”

Smith could have gone anywhere in the country. He could have gone the G League route and started his professional career early, knowing the NBA was likely a year away. Instead, he chose to come to Auburn. He wanted to play in front of crowds like he did that night against Alabama. He wanted to develop his game for the next level. More than anything, he wanted to win, to be part of something special. 

The 6-foot-10 freshman leads the Tigers with 17 points per game. He was Auburn’s first All-American selection in 23 years and has a chance to be the program’s first No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. But as March Madness approaches, none of that matters to Smith as much as winning does.

“I just want to be remembered as somebody who always plays the right way, always plays hard,” Smith said. “Somebody who never really cared about stats or anything like that. Somebody who just always wanted to win for Auburn, always wanted to win for my teammates and also for myself.”

Like Smith, Kessler has had an outstanding season as well. He broke Auburn's all-time single-season blocks record. He has two of the three triple-doubles in Auburn history. A Naismith Defensive Player of the Year finalist, he's moved himself up draft boards and into the first-round discussion. 

But like Smith, the focus for Kessler is squarely on the NCAA Tournament.

“They're humble guys, great guys on and off the court,” Jasper said of his teammates. “That's the biggest thing. Because a lot of people look at them like, 'Oh, they might not be team players. Jabari might be a top 3 draft pick.' But those guys want to win a national championship more than anything. They're not focusing on the draft right now. They're focused on a national championship, and that's the one goal all of us are focusing on.”

Last March, Green, Jasper and Johnson all watched the NCAA Tournament from home not knowing what was next for them. Smith was fresh off a loss in the high school state championship game, and Kessler, the only one in the group to play in March Madness, was gearing up for a first-round game against Wisconsin.

“A year ago at this time, I think I had just lost the OVC Tournament,” Green said. “I was watching the tournament at home trying to figure out what I was going to do with my basketball career. I never thought I’d be in this position right now.”

On Friday, Green and his Auburn teammates will face 15 seed Jacksonville State in Greenville, South Carolina, as the Tigers look to win their first NCAA Tournament game since the 2018-19 team beat Kentucky and punched their ticket to the Final Four.

This Auburn team is different from that Final Four team in how it was put together and the style it plays and the path it took to get to March, but there are also a lot of similarities between the two. Both teams are beloved by the fans. For proof this year, just look at how Auburn fans have traveled to go see the Tigers play. It will be no different in Greenville. Both teams also wanted to make history.

The 2018-19 left their mark. Now it’s time for the 2021-22 team to leave theirs.

“Everybody wants to win,” Smith said. “Nobody on this team is a loser. You can check anybody's resume. Everybody in high school was winning. Everybody in high school was playing to win, playing for championships all their life. So, this is nothing new to us.

“It's just important for us to always stay together. No matter if we win or lose, just know that we're brothers. It's bigger than basketball.”