Ole Miss vs. Auburn is the one chance the Rebels have to pull off an upset wild enough to impact the bracketology.
The Ole Miss men's basketball team takes on Auburn on Feb. 28, and the game is an absolute must-win for the Tigers, sitting in the Bubble.
And ESPN analytics predicts that the Tigers can most likely pull it off. The metric gave Auburn an 81.7% chance of keeping Ole Miss limited for the day.
Before their four-game losing streak, Auburn was projected to finish its season in the first half of the bracket. Now, they will exit it as a bubble team with more projections to be in the First Four play-in games in Dayton than anything else on the Bracket Matrix.
And Ole Miss's season is as good as over for the Rebs. A 10-game loss streak has taught the Rebel crowd not to get their hopes up too high.
“I told the guys yesterday, ‘There’s 323 teams in college basketball that wish they were us right now. Think about that. There’s really only 42 teams right now that are really in contention for 37 at-large bids. … You understand how fortunate you are to be in this situation? Like, people would die to be in our shoes right now. So let’s take advantage of it," Auburn head coach Steven Pearl said of the Ole Miss game.
“We’ve put ourselves in position to be in position. We’ve gotta go win some games now. That’s on us as a coaching staff and as a team to go out there and perform and finish this thing off the right way.”
Another loss will worsen Chris Beard's historic 10-game losing streak at Ole Miss. It wouldn't be a shock if it does.
Ole Miss vs. Auburn tipoff is at 8:30 PM ET.