The Auburn Tigers lost a tough one in Nashville to the Tennessee Volunteers to be eliminated from the SEC Tournament in their second game and potentially push their NCAA Tournament hopes over the edge as they await their fate on Selection Sunday.

While the Tigers have played one of the toughest schedules in the nation and do have some impressive wins, they finish their season barely above .500, and them being in the field would make Auburn the first team in history to make the tournament with 16 losses to their name.

Despite all that, Auburn head coach Steven Pearl still believes his team deserves a shot in his first year at the helm to play in March Madness, and after the loss he argued his case.

“We deserve to be in the tournament,” Pearl said when asked about whether his team would accept an NIT bid if they are not selected, saying that there have not been internal discussions on the topic to this point. “What people have to understand is that it’s my job to fight for my team, it’s my job to be my team’s advocate, and it’s my job to speak about all the things this group has done.”

“We scheduled a really hard out of conference schedule and we had some really quality wins in that streak. This tournament is a team of who you can beat, and if you look at six teams on the bubble right now, we have more top-25 NET wins than everyone in that group but Missouri and we have more top-50 wins than everyone in that group.”

Pearl continued to cite stats showing his belief that the Tigers are a better team than those they will be evaluated against for the final spots in the field.

“This team deserves to be in the tournament,” he said. “It’s a team that can win games in the tournament, and I think they have done enough ultimately to have their name called on Selection Sunday.”

Pearl will have to await until Sunday evening to find out his team’s fate, but it does not look all that great at this time. After a disastrous month of February and an early exit in Nashville, their hopes may be hanging by a thread at this point, but time will tell whether or not they get in.