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The Auburn Tigers have had their name mentioned in recent college basketball scandals, mainly the Adidas situation and allegedly paying players to go to specific schools.
Now, the school has announced that they will be self-imposing a postseason ban on its men’s basketball program for the 2020-21 season.
This is a smart move by the Tigers considering that it is going to be tough to have a full season due to coronavirus and on top of that, Bruce Pearl may not have an NCAA Tournament-caliber team regardless.
Auburn has self-imposed a postseason ban on its men’s basketball program for this season.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) November 22, 2020
Smart move since there might not be a full season, and also since Auburn might not be an NCAA tourney team. anyway.
The self-imposed postseason ban is Auburn’s attempt to avoid the hammer being dropped on them by the NCAA due to their allegations and are a result of the investigation into former assistant Chuck Person, who as arrested in 2017 during the FBI’s investigation into college basketball.
“This was a difficult decision but the right decision,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said in his statement. “I hate it for our current players. They lost the opportunity for the postseason last year because of COVID, and now they will miss the postseason again. It’s a two-year postseason penalty for them. However, we need to take this penalty now to put it behind us.”
We have seen in the past with Louisville that self-imposed penalties can have little effect on the punishment that the NCAA dishes out.
It will be interesting to see if the same strategy pays off for Auburn once the NCAA finally announces the punishments for their involvement in this scandal.