Auburn basketball may already be March Madness's No. 1 overall seed with six games left in the regular season and the SEC Tournament still left to play after beating Alabama in the Iron Bowl of Basketball.
USA Today's Jordan Mendoza believes they have, anyway.
"It's almost become a routine; the Tigers face a strong opponent and have another impressive outing. They continue to stack up high-profile wins week after week," Mendoza prefaced before asking, "Which begs the question: Has one No. 1 seed been locked up, four weeks from Selection Sunday?
"With such an impressive resume, Auburn may as well be a lock for a No. 1 seed come tournament time. No one comes close to the body of work it has done, so the Tigers can afford to lose some more, if teams can somehow conquer them.
"There's still plenty of time for the bracket to change from now to March 16, but believe with complete certainty Auburn will be a top seed, and after winning the potential game of the season, it leads the top storylines from the past weekend of college basketball."
Auburn has victories over half of the AP Top 25 Poll's top-10 teams and their only two losses are to top-three teams.
While not a perfect season by definition, this feels like the most perfect season since Kentucky's in 2014-15, led by Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Willie Cauley-Stein, Trey Lyles, and the Harrison twins. That team had nine eventual NBA players on the roster and went undefeated until the Final Four.
Auburn will avoid the same fate. The Tigers have already picked up losses on the road and at home, which in basketball, aren't always detrimental.
There hasn't been an undefeated national champion since 1976, Bob Knight's Indiana Hoosiers to be exact, and there doesn't figure to be one anytime soon with increasingly competitive non-conference schedules that include tournaments involving other highly-rated programs.
Auburn is as good as it gets in that context. Losing another regular season game, or even bouncing early from the SEC Tournament, won't hold the team back from their ultimate goal of cutting down the nets in April. It may center them mentally if anything.
In many ways, having that much momentum already probably says Auburn is likely deserving of that No. 1 overall seed right now.