re: Who’s No. 1? Saturday’s Iron Bowl of Basketball set to be insane

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Both fan bases are nervous as hell.

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you aint lying. This game is so big

Alabama blowout, Auburn is a fraud

Maybe already been stated; but why the frick is this not the 7 o'clock game?!! I'm not able to settle down and sip on Saturdays till then and I expect the biggest game in the country to be on.. bullshite.

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Both fan bases are nervous as hell.

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Not me. This is a no-lose situation for both teams. As long as it's a competitive game, neither team will get slammed nationally for a loss.

Should be fun.

I mean other than a little trash talk, you're exactly right.

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SEC Doctor

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Imagine having such uncontrollable feelings that you can't enjoy one of the few threads that is populated by people actually capable of behaving like adults. Very sad and feminine existence.

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Being at bama, it's going to be a tough task.

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Yeah, my assumption is we split home and home wins.

LSU 2007 alone forfeits any LSU fan's right to talk about mulligans. That was THE ultimate backdoor your way to #2 and a spot in the national title game.

LSU and Alabama were far and away the two best teams at the end of the 2011 regular season. The only team remotely close was Oklahoma State and they had a loss in mid November to an Iowa State team that finished the regular season 6-6 and lost their bowl game. T

After Alabama lost 9-6 in early November a couple of teams ranked ahead of Alabama lost and Alabama quickly jumped back to #2 while Oklahoma State lost to a terrible Iowa State team and fell to about #7 in the polls. After their Iowa State loss Alabama was #2 and Okie State was #7 and then #3 thru #6 teams all lost. The hilarious thing was watching LSU fans white knight so hard for Okie State and arguing that they should jump #2 Alabama (despite a horrible loss to 6-6 Iowa State on Nov 18th) trying to make the argument that Oklahoma State deserved to jump #2 Alabama on the sole basis they won the Big 12 conference that year. It was such an insanely lame argument for Oklahoma State that year and thankfully the BCS voters that counted didn't fall for it when correctly determining that Alabama was the #2 team in the final poll after the conference championship games that season.

As for Saturday's game, here are my thoughts and amateur analysis...

I can't shake the feeling that this Auburn team is simply a slightly better overall team that has a significantly higher margin of error than Alabama in a game like this.

The thing that scares me as an Alabama fan about this particular Auburn team is that they have zero weaknesses from an offensive, defensive, rebounding, transition game, and half court game standpoint. In other words, Auburn can beat Alabama in more ways than vice versa. This Auburn team is fully capable of running at Alabama's fast transition pace and they are even more comfortable and efficient slowing it down and playing a half court game offensively and grinding on Alabama defensively in a half court game.

Not only is Auburn strong in the post they have a handful of very good 3 pt shooters so it's impossible to key in or double team the post because you'll get beat by the 3. Even more concerning is Auburn's ability to lean on you defensively and create a lot of turnovers in the process which is the only glaring weakness Alabama struggles with at times offensively (turnovers). This Alabama team is much better and more consistent on defense than last year's team but will still struggle to score efficiently if we're off from the 3 pt line.

The atmosphere in Coleman will be loud and intense and will be worth an extra 5 to 7 pts in my opinion but my gut tells me Auburn wins a competitive game. Hope I'm wrong but gun to my head I'd have to lean towards Auburn in a close one.,,,Prediction: Auburn 85 Alabama 81

This thing is getting waaaaay too much hype.

It’s nearly inconsequential.