Chad Baker-Mazara made quite the name for himself during Auburn's 93-91 OT loss to Alabama in their IBOB regular season finale. CBM was ejected for elbowing Alabama's Chris Youngblood and later took to social media to comment on it -- proving the lesson might not have gotten through.
Bruce Pearl's "didn't see the full play" postgame comments certainly didn't reinforce the notion CBM got the message.
AL.com's Joseph Goodman was a lot tougher on Baker-Mazara. Goodman believes Youngblood was within bounds "targeting" CBM and provoking him into physical play. He also believes Baker-Mazara "doesn't care or can't help himself."
"Yes, it was absolutely Youngblood’s job to target Baker-Mazara with contact in the hopes of Baker-Mazara doing something stupid. It was expected and it’s going to happen in every game for Baker-Mazara for the rest of his career. Baker-Mazara understands this, but apparently he doesn’t care or just can’t help himself," Goodman wrote.
"Johni Broome said that he hopes Baker-Mazara learns from his mistakes, but CBM is 25 years old. I’m not sure that there’s anything left to learn. Baker-Mazara’s on-court behavior has actually gotten worse over the last few weeks. It’s not a positive trend for the Auburn basketball Tigers."
Auburn lost their No. 1 overall ranking in the AP Top 25 Poll and fell to No. 3 due to multiple losses in the last week.
It's not quite to hit the panic button yet, but CBM needs to get his act together. The Tigers don't need distractions with the depth of their March Madness competition. This is too strong of a field to be anything but laser-focused.