I wrote last Saturday night that I thought Auburn suffered the most devastating loss possible in the Final Four.

The fact that the final buzzer sounded and the celebration had already began in the stadium because nobody could hear the referee’s whistle certainly added to that. Watching fans go from thinking Auburn clinched a spot in the national title to realizing their season was over in the span of a couple minutes was painful. Really painful.

By now, you’ve already seen a bunch of the reactions, of which there were many. I’d be surprised if Auburn fans just said, “oh well, at least it was fun while it lasted.” The fact that there was not 1 but 2 controversial calls that didn’t go Auburn’s way made it all the more painful.

So yeah, Auburn fans. I get it. Of course you were upset. You have every right to feel devastated.

My first thought when the final sequence played out was, oh boy. I hope nobody prematurely rolled Toomer’s Corner.

As we found out, yes that happened. Oh, and in typical #ItMightMeanTooMuch fashion, the “S-E-C! S-E-C!” chants were heard loud and clear:

https://twitter.com/RedditCFB/status/1114700843289337856

Dang, man. That’s tough to watch.

Ah, but even if you were one of those Auburn fans who chanted “S-E-C! S-E-C!” while hurling toilet paper at trees, at least you weren’t this Auburn fan, who prematurely poured a beer on himself … and then reportedly got arrested for kicking chairs and basically throwing a drunken temper tantrum in public:

Yikes.

Just out of curiosity, does that fan tell his kids one day that he was there when Auburn made it to the Final Four? Or does he shave his head so that he’s not remembered as the guy handled that whole situation about as poorly as one could?

I don’t know. That’s his call.

Some Auburn fans used alcohol in other ways to deal with the loss. Take for example, a few guests at a local Minneapolis hotel. It’s safe to say they attended the game the night before, and it’s also safe to say they were struggling to move on from the loss:

That game ended around 7:30 local time, if I’m not mistaken. What I want to know is if that was the end of their drinking or just the beginning of it because if it was the end, that’s some unbelievable stamina. That suggests a roughly 13-hour period in which more alcohol than sleep was consumed.

Or perhaps those Auburn fans did get a full night’s rest and the first thing they thought of the next day was, as the great Kesha once said …

“Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy (Hey, what up girl?)
Grab my glasses, I’m out the door; I’m gonna hit this city (Let’s go)
Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack”

Maybe Kesha was also dealing with a devastating loss after watching her team lose in the Final Four back when she wrote “Tik Tok.” One can only assume.

I’m not here to encourage that necessarily, but at least the Auburn fans were mumbling about the missed double dribble call and not kicking chairs and getting arrested.

Some people dealt with the loss by making noise on social media. Former Auburn star and current Detroit Lions running back Kerryon Johnson had quite the back and forth with an Alabama fan a day after the loss. An Alabama fan called Johnson out after he tweeted “I am absolutely sick that our boys battled the whole tournament for the refs to finally wanna feel important and take the game from them.”

To which, Johnson clapped back with this:

Oh snap. Johnson apparently isn’t a believer in Nate Oats.

(I am, but we’ll save that discussion for another time.)

I tend to think that after a loss like that, social media is the last place I’d want to be if I were a fan. It would be the perfect time to binge watch some shows, read some books or just get into any hobby that doesn’t involve the internet. You know, just lay low for a few days. Wait for the burn to sting a little bit less.

Some, like the Lee County District Attorney’s Office, waited a few days before using social media to make their opinions known.

This post from Tuesday was something plenty of Auburn fans could rally behind:

That’s the most frustrating thing about this. I truly believe that if Auburn had lost on a half-court buzzer beater, this would be easier to stomach right now. At least players and fans could walk away feeling like they lost based on merit.

But watching Virginia celebrate a national championship a couple nights later probably just made it worse. It’s fair to always wonder about what could have happened had the double dribble been called, or if the Samir Doughty foul was a play-on. There’s no guarantee that Auburn would have matched up perfectly with Texas Tech even though Virginia won the title game. It still would have been fun to find out.

I can’t imagine how much crazier this would have been had this happened in a College Football Playoff semifinal game. There probably would have been a whole lot more fans like the beer-pouring, chair-kicking dude who got arrested.

Speaking of football, maybe that’s the way Auburn fans can cope with this pain. No, really. Every time an Auburn fan sees something on the internet related to this Final Four loss, their browser is immediately prompted to a replay of “The Kick-6.”

Fair enough?