'this Season Wasn't A Wash': Auburn Basketball's Historic Year Fittingly Ends At Final Four

SAN ANTONIO — The weight of the moment felt tangible. Auburn basketball's locker room, in the undercarriage of the Alamodome, was grappling with defeat.

After the Tigers' NCAA Tournament run, and 2024-25 season, came to a close with a 79-73 loss to Florida in the Final Four on Saturday, words from most players felt breathless. Tears welling up in reddened eyes were despondent. But for some members of the program, it was OK to find some humor in it all.

To Dylan Cardwell, it was vital to the Tigers' success.

"We're the funniest team in America, and we wouldn't be where we're without making light of every situation," Cardwell said, grinning. "It's just having an attitude with gratitude throughout the season."

If anyone had a reason to be sad, it was Cardwell. The winningest player in program history, Saturday's loss was the 166th game of his career, capping a five-season stint on the Plains. But the ever-candid Cardwell was clear-eyed and smiling, and he made an apt point.

Two games into the season, Auburn made the wrong sort of headlines. A flight to Houston was redirected after an on-flight altercation. The next day, it faced then-No. 4 Houston, which plays in Monday's national championship.

The Tigers won, and as Cardwell said earlier this week, it was a needed turning point, rolling Auburn into the most ambitious schedule in program history.

After winning in Houston, it kept winning. It beat three more ranked opponents before wading into SEC play, where the wins didn't stop. Auburn won a second conference championship in two seasons this year, and this time, it did so in the regular season — securing the title one week before the postseason began.

Of the 14 SEC teams that made the NCAA Tournament, Auburn was top of the heap. That was clearly enough to quell the disappointment of Saturday's season-ending defeat, at least for some. Chaney Johnson had jokes, too.

"I mean, they called us old the whole entire year," Johnson said, responding to a question of how physical the Tigers played. "So, the age is getting to us a little bit."

Johnson's eligibility for next season remains in question, but he was one of 10 seniors on this year's roster. The door is still technically open for a return, but the group's experience undoubtedly took them so far. For all his age, and perhaps wisdom, coach Bruce Pearl's postgame message, however simple, resonated with Johnson.

"This season wasn't a wash," he said.

Pearl's Auburn program has made plenty of history in his 11-season tenure. This one, however, was genuinely the best.

The Tigers won their fifth SEC title under Pearl's watch, and they did so with a program-record 32 wins. They were the NCAA Tournament's No. 1 overall seed for the first time ever. There's even a now-moot point to make that this season would have been Auburn's best had it not made such a deep run.

The Tigers put a swift end to that hypothetical.

After losing their last two regular-season games, and three of their last four heading into March Madness, an opening-round NCAA Tournament win over Alabama State was visibly lacking in effort. Some within the program were out-spoken about it.

Naturally, Auburn responded with double-digit wins in the Round of 32 and Sweet 16 before beating Michigan State in the Elite Eight to get to the program's second Final Four ever.

"When I first got here, all they talked about was the 2019 team," Cardwell said. "To have my own (Final Four) team — to have my own team — it's just meant the world to me."

While the Final Four loss was easier for the likes of Cardwell and Johnson to swallow, that wasn't consensus. Players like Miles Kelly and Chad Baker-Mazara were reserved in their answers, as was Johni Broome.

It ended Broome's historic five-year college career, closing a storybook chapter with defeat. That clearly wasn't lost on Broome.

After going to the podium, Broome returned to his locker and took just three questions. With his hoodie draped over his eyes, he couldn't utter more than a choked-up sentence for the first two questions.

But he got three out in the final answer of the college career.

"Auburn's meant a lot to me," he said. "Auburn changed my life. I'm just grateful I got to play for Auburn."

Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at acole@gannett.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @colereporter.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn basketball's historic season is over. But it wasn't a wash.