It was the year of high expectations. Auburn started out highly ranked, but after out-of-conference play, the Tigers looked less and less like a contender and more like a pretender.
That paragraph could be applied to two different Auburn teams this year. While failing to meet expectations is something very familiar to Auburn football fans, it is a new occurrence to Auburn basketball fans. As many old-school Auburn basketball followers will tell you, simply having expectations for the Tigers is something new, which has softened the blow for the slide back to center for the Auburn basketball fan.