Auburn basketball is on top of the world. At 21-1, the Tigers are the No. 1 team in the country and have the best odds to win March Madness. AU recently surpassed Duke, the only team with a win over the Tigers, in the betting markets.
Auburn is not perfect, though. Besides the one loss, there have been issues game-to-game on the floor including but not limited to defensive slip-ups, shooting slumps, and playing emotionally instead of pragmatically.
Chad Baker-Mazara was lambasted for the last part, specifically his postgame behavior in a 98-70 win over Oklahoma Tuesday. OutKick's Mark Harris was especially hard on CBM's behavior as a 25-year-old.
"In order to be a great athlete, you have to have an immeasurable amount of confidence. Some of those athletes are the quiet-confident type, while others wear their emotions on their sleeve. Then there is Auburn guard Chad Baker-Mazara, who oozes confidence out of every pore of his body," Harris wrote.
"With Baker-Mazara being the second-leading scorer for the Tigers, who are unquestionably the best basketball team in the country at this point in time, he has every reason to be dripping with confidence.
"There is a fine line between looking confident and coming across as arrogant, and Baker-Mazara crossed that line so long ago he can't even see it anymore.
"(The Oklahoma incident was) Weird, over-the-top behavior, but it gets even weirder when you consider that Baker-Mazara is a 25-year-old ‘grown’ man. You could expect this type of stuff from a young player, but this man has been able to legally buy alcohol for four full years."
Auburn has had questionable culture problems all season. "Plane Gate" was the first storyline of the season, and Jahki Howard's buy-in has been questioned given his minimal role and less-than-enthused attitude since.
Baker-Mazara doesn't need to complicate things. While his passion is laudable, his ejection against Yale in last year's March Madness is seen by many as the Tigers' undoing.
Bruce Pearl's greatest challenge in the next few months, besides a potential rematch against Cooper Flagg's Blue Devils, will be to keep his locker room focused on not beating themselves.
Auburn is Auburn's greatest opponent. And too often, that directly results in Tiger losses.