Auburn got hosed. By now, you know this.

It’s been several days since the buzz of the Tigers’ SEC Championship celebration was killed by the daunting reality that came with a 4-seed in the same region as defending champ UConn, AKA the No. 1 overall seed in the entire NCAA Tournament.

And by now, you know that Bruce Pearl has been reminding his team of that every chance he could get.

In a strange way, perhaps that news reset expectations for Auburn. Never mind that it rolled through a conference tournament of an 8-bid league and was told that its top-5 ranking in NET and KenPom was irrelevant. This is more evidence suggesting that the SEC needs to have its conference tournament moved up a day so that the hay is in the barn by Saturday night, a wise move the ACC made in 2015. But that doesn’t matter for this year’s squad.

If the selection committee had defaulted to that instead of those 3 Quad 1 wins, perhaps Auburn would’ve had the top 3-seed in the field. That could’ve led to a Sweet 16 matchup against a team like Marquette or Iowa State, and not UConn, which again, is currently favored by DraftKings to become the first team to repeat since 2006-07 Florida.

But it didn’t. Auburn can’t change that, nor can it change the fact that unlike last year when it somehow got to face No. 1 seed Houston down the road in Birmingham, the selection committee decided that Spokane, Wash., was a more suitable Round 1-2 destination.

(It doesn’t really work like that, but it certainly added to the whole “selection committee hosed Auburn” argument.)

To be clear, that doesn’t mean Pearl is hanging pictures of Danny Hurley in every locker hoping that it fuels the fire like Rocky Balboa had of Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. Last I checked, Auburn isn’t training in the mountains of Russia for any matchups just yet. Shoot, Auburn/UConn isn’t even officially locked in yet. Both teams have to win their 2 respective matchups to get to Moscow. Er, to get to the Sweet 16.

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For Auburn, though, there’s a certain edge that can be tapped into this weekend. If we’re all talking about how the conference title was perhaps the start of a national championship run instead of the brutal draw, it can be easy to overlook an Ivy League champ in the Round of 64. Don’t believe that? Go ask Arizona. Like, the team that rolled through the Pac-12 Tournament last year and got a 2-seed … only to get stunned by Ivy League champ Princeton in the Round of 64.

There’s no reason for Auburn to come out flat like Arizona did. Shots might not fall, but Auburn’s floor is so high — it lacked the Quad 1 wins but it didn’t lose a single game outside of Quad 1 — because of how well it defends. It ranked No. 4 in adjusted defensive efficiency thanks in part to Johni Broome, who headlined the SEC’s All-Defensive Team. A guy who has some modern-day Joakim Noah in him should set the tone.

It helps that the interior defense doesn’t fall off with Dylan Cardwell, who should help protect the rim against a Yale team that does typical Ivy League things. That is, slow the tempo and work for high-percentage looks in the half-court. How do you beat that? Disciplined defense and unselfish offense. Auburn has both (the Tigers are No. 7 in America with 18 assists per game). Hence, that 13-point spread (via DraftKings).

The oddsmakers might care about Auburn’s 26 wins by double digits, but the NCAA Tournament gods don’t. They care about showing up with the right approach. A battle-tested team playing like it has something to prove has the best shot of advancing in March.

And let’s be honest. Auburn can be upset about the draw all it wants. Auburn assistant Steven Pearl went on with my guys at The Next Round and said it was “a joke” that the selection committee did that to the Tigers.

He’s right. But joke or not, Auburn’s path to the Final Four was always going to include taking down a title contender or 2. Pearl knows that as well as anyone. Last time when the Tigers won the SEC Tournament and only got a 5-seed, they had to take down blue-bloods Kansas, UNC and Kentucky just to get to the Final Four.

What’s easy to forget about that 2019 run — that was the SEC’s last Final Four team — was what happened in the opening game. Auburn did everything it could to give away that game to upset-hungry New Mexico State. A double-digit lead evaporated in the final 6 minutes and Auburn held on for dear life. In the final 65 seconds, Pearl’s squad turned the ball over 3 times, it missed the front end of a pair of one-and-ones and up 2, and after New Mexico inexplicably turned down an open game-tying layup in the final seconds for a potential game-winning 3, Auburn fouled the shooter.

The Tigers could’ve easily gone home. Instead, a 78% free-throw shooter went 1-for-3 from the line and Auburn lived to fight another day.

“Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good,” Pearl said in the postgame interview.

Pearl’s squad was good for the rest of that path to the Final Four and then unlucky in the closing moments against Virginia when a missed double-dribble call was the difference … by now, you know this. You also know that if Auburn wants to repeat that run, it’ll need to be lucky and good.

It got unlucky with the draw, but Auburn has all the ammo necessary to be darn good in March.