Two down, three to go for Auburn.

Two down, three to go for Alabama.

Two down, three to go for Armageddon.

It’s real now. Auburn has beaten up Alabama State and Creighton and Alabama has taken down Robert Morris and Saint Mary’s. Two state teams times 2-0 in the NCAA Tournament equals two weeks away from what would be the most manic Monday in state history.

Two weeks from today. We are that close to the day the unreal becomes real and the rivalry to end all rivalries reaches its peak. Not North Carolina and Duke. Not Kentucky and Louisville. Auburn and Alabama. Alabama and Auburn.

One game for One Shining Moment, for the state’s first national championship in Division I basketball. We have said it was possible from the first day of the season, and we will keep speaking it into existence until Dylan Cardwell and Cliff Omoruyi face off for the opening tip at closing time in San Antonio.

You can see it from here, closer than it’s been in 39 years, the end of the world as we know it, as we’ve always known it, as no one would’ve believed it or conceived it when Chuck Person and Buck Johnson ruled our little corner of the roundball world and threatened the rest of the big blue marble.

Auburn and Alabama have advanced to the Sweet 16 together for just the third time ever, for the first time since 1986, when they did it for the second straight season.

How long ago was 1986? It was the first year of a universal shot clock, which lasted 45 seconds. It was the last year before the introduction of the 3-point line.

None of the current players were alive at the time. No, not even everyone’s favorite villain, Auburn’s bony-ass pain in the ass Chad Baker-Mazara, whose burst at the start of the second half Saturday against Creighton was his finest hour for the Tigers. A bone bruise shortened his evening, but he rekindled something in this team that had been missing since clinching the SEC regular-season title.

How impressive does that championship look now that the SEC has set an NCAA Tournament record with seven teams in the Sweet 16? In 10 games against the rest of that elite group, Auburn won seven.

By taking charge in the second half of its second Big Dance start, by winning for the third time in Rupp Arena this season after going 0 for the previous 36 years there, Auburn earned its 30th victory of the season. That matches the school record set by the 2019 team, which broke the state’s Final Four glass ceiling.

As good as that team was, it lost 10 games and shocked the world as a 5 seed by winning four NCAA Tournament games, the last three of them against Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky. As the No. 1 overall seed this time, this 30-5 team is built different, and it can only surprise us by not reaching the Final Four.

Up next: Michigan with former Auburn point guard Tre Donaldson and former Alabama shooting guard Nimari Burnett. The modern version of the Iron Bowl of Basketball knows no borders.

Burnett’s old teammates in Tuscaloosa haven’t exactly missed him. Alabama is back in the Sweet 16 for the third straight year, which ties the program record set by Wimp Sanderson and company from 1985-87.

As good as those Tide teams were, they never got past the regional semifinals. If no one saw last year’s Final Four run coming, no one should be surprised if this team goes back-to-back. BYU in the next round is a game 27-8 Alabama should win. Duke in the regional final, if it comes to that, is a game Alabama can win.

If you don’t believe it, spring practice is that way.

That’s the difference between 1985/1986 and 2025. Higher seeds. Greater expectations. Taller ceilings. Auburn is a 1 seed. Alabama is a 2. Their underdog days are well behind them. In a tournament dominated by the big dogs, neither the Tigers nor the TIde have been in danger of losing at crunch time in either game.

Even better, their leaders, first-team All-Americans Johni Broome and Mark Sears, have yet to play their best in this event. Instead their teammates have stepped up in ways large and small, from Auburn’s 5-star bucket-getter Tahaad Pettiford and minister of culture/defense Cardwell to Alabama’s hard-hat foreman Mo Dioubate and all-around inspiration Grant Nelson.

All credit to Bruce Pearl and Nate Oats because these teams were built for next weekend and the weekend beyond. They still have to do it, but the true hoops believers in this state no longer have to dream it. We can see it coming into focus, one Miles Kelly logo dagger and banked Chris Youngblood corner trey at a time.

Two down, three to go, times two.

Let’s go.