Auburn plays in the SEC and is among the top college football programs, so it would be hard to consider them a “mid-major” in any sense. But Charles Barkley believes the Tigers are a secondary college basketball program.
Barkley, who is the school’s most famous basketball alum, sat in on SEC Network’s telecast of the Auburn-LSU game on Wednesday for a few minutes. He was asked why it’s been so hard for Auburn to sustain basketball success and shared his opinion.
“The main reason is all the best players in the country want to go to a school where they’re going to be one-and-done. We’re not getting those guys. That’s the biggest problem with any mid-major. Auburn’s not a mid-major, but technically they are,” said Barkley.
“All the McDonald’s All-Americans — all the great players — they’re going to go to certain schools because they all have the mentality that they’re only going to be in school for one year. We haven’t been getting those guys, but I think Bruce (Pearl) is doing a terrific job of trying to get those guys,” Barkley said in reference to Auburn’s basketball coach.
“All the McDonald’s All-Americans or all the guys who think they’re going to be one-and-done, they’re not going to go to smaller schools. They’re going to go to schools where they’re going to be on TV every week.”
Whether you agree with Barkley calling Auburn a mid-major in basketball or not, his bottom line is that the program just doesn’t get the high-quality players that say a Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas or UCLA gets. That is a point most can agree with. But calling a prominent athletic school that plays in a big-time conference a mid-major is debatable.
