Is Joe Lunardi starting to come around? Auburn has made "ALSO CONSIDERED" group on his latest Bracketology scroll, a small, but notable, advancement in the Tigers' at-large candidacy for the NCAA tournament.

A couple things to keep in mind:

• While Lunardi in no way has any influence over the NCAA tournament selection process, his word regarding the bracket is pretty much taken as gospel. He never misses. (Well, 10 times in the last decade or so, but still.) So the fact that he's saying this really does nothing to help Auburn, but it is reflective of what the committee might be considering. Make sense?

• Two, Auburn still has a long way to go. Think about it. Lunardi lists his first four teams who missed the tournament, THEN another four, THEN a group of teams (in no particular order, I would surmise) who are after that. Auburn is in that third group, which includes 14 teams.

So what does this mean? Well, Auburn still has some work to do in the SEC tournament, but we all knew that. However, the Tigers are at least now being considered, which is a bunch better than what the case was last week.