Nate Oats is a terrific trash talker.

In the days leading up to Saturday’s 77-69 victory at Neville Arena, Alabama’s men’s basketball coach referred to the game against the Crimson Tide’s rival as Auburn’s Super Bowl. It was a dig at Auburn’s team this season compared to his, but Oats was wrong in his assessment of Auburn’s passion for hoops. The Super Bowl might be the biggest game in the world, but it’s got nothing on games at Neville Arena.

Auburn students began pitching their tents outside the basketball arena two nights before tipoff. They wanted to ensure themselves a seat in the building. Those kids will never forget that experience, and the atmosphere they created, and the NCAA Tournament committee isn’t going to forget how Alabama stared it all down and delivered a signature moment worthy of the best team in the country.

Desire smoldered from every seat in the final minutes of this one. It was beautiful. It was a burning hoops heaven. It was college basketball at its best. Oats is a terrific trash talker, yes, and I love that about him, but he was wrong. I’ve covered the Super Bowl, and they don’t come close to touching the passion of an Auburn home basketball game against Alabama.

This was more. This was better. And here’s the true beauty of it all. This is now what people expect from their basketball teams in this state of elite college hoops.

“This is why college basketball is different than the NBA,” said Oats after the victory, and he was 100 percent correct about that.

RELATED: Craig wins a car, Alabama drops crane on Auburn

RELATED: Auburn fades down the stretch against Alabama

GOODMAN: Jalen Hurts was mad for the Super Bowl

GOODMAN: The coach who swam upstream

GOODMAN: Beware, SEC, this confederacy of cowboys

Alabama has won games at No.1 Houston and at No.15 Arkansas this season, but this one was different. It counts extra, even with Auburn being unranked, and I don’t mean just bragging rights either. These days, the true test of toughness in the SEC is winning at Auburn. No offense to Kentucky and Tennessee, but before an SEC team can stake a claim to a No.1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, it must first win in Auburn’s paradise of hell.

Is it tougher to win at Auburn than Kentucky? I asked Oats that question after the game.

“Probably this year,” he said.

And then Oats, digging in deep the blades of disrespect, once again called this game Auburn’s “Super Bowl.”

Not a Super Bowl for Alabama, he implied, even though this was Alabama’s first victory at Neville in a non-pandemic setting since 2015. The victory in the 2020-21 season was hard-earned, but this one was against a good Auburn team, a feral student section and all of the mean energy Lee County could conjure.

“They’re right on top of you here,” Oats said.

Maybe in the future Alabama will have an arena worthy enough to match their rivals. Until that day comes, winning at Auburn will always mean a little more for everyone in the SEC. Oats’ team will play better teams this season, including one on Wednesday at the University of Tennessee, but none will offer his team a more intense atmosphere than Neville.

Greatness in the SEC goes through that building, and it has made Auburn’s principal rival better by association. UNC and Duke have that bond. So do Kentucky and Louisville. Add Auburn and Alabama to the list of college basketball’s best rivalries. These days, an Alabama team that can win at Neville Arena validates itself as a national title contender.

“Everything they say about Auburn’s crowd is true,” Alabama swingman Rylan Griffen said.

NBA scouts love Auburn’s barn of truth, too. From where the talent evaluators sit, with Alabama’s Brandon Miller on the court, it sure seemed like the premier basketball rivalry in the country. Here’s the important thing to understand about that, though. It was the same last season, but in reverse. Auburn, with NBA lottery pick Jabari Smith, was No.1 when these two teams faced off.

This time, Alabama is the team chasing history.

That’s how No.3 Alabama (21-3, 11-0) is playing with seven games left in the regular season and a two-game lead in the SEC standings. Texas A&M (18-7, 10-2) is second in the SEC, and Tennessee (19-6, 8-4) is now a distant third after losing back-to-back heartbreakers to Vanderbilt (19-6, 8-4) and Missouri (19-6, 7-5). This is Alabama’s best basketball team in school history, and the adversity caused by a former teammate being charged with capital murder during the season has only seemed to make this group stronger. It’s hard to fully comprehend, but there is no denying how tough this team has worked together since Darius Miles was arrested in the shooting death of Jamea Harris.

Whether anyone else wants to acknowledge it or not, this season is different and it will remain that way until it is over.

Oats is leading at an uncommon level, and his players and Alabama is lucky to have him. His counterpart on Saturday is one of the best in the country, too, and Auburn coach Bruce Pearl did everything he could for this one. Pearl pumped his arms and waved his fists to the crowd before tipoff. He passed out chicken biscuits to students early in the morning. It was almost enough.

Pearl is getting everything out of this season, and he has a good team, but sometimes good teams need to be better. This one came down to a couple possessions in the end, but Auburn couldn’t deliver. After Alabama’s Rylan Griffen blocked Wendell Green’s three-point attempt, there was no way the visiting team was letting this one slip away. Auburn shot 32.3 percent from the field and worse than that from behind the arc.

Sometimes the Super Bowls are sloppy.

Auburn (17-8, 7-5) has lost five of its last six games, but in the SEC, at least this season, I don’t think that’s too much of an indictment. There will be other big games for the Tigers , and a victory against Missouri on Tuesday (6 p.m.) would all but guarantee Auburn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Those crazy kids camped out in tents for student seats in the cold and the rain. That’s love, and that’s something even better than a Super Bowl. That’s college basketball in Auburn, Alabama.

KENTUCKY BLUES

How many teams will the SEC get in the NCAA Tournament, and will Kentucky be one among them? These are the big questions around the league as it moves into the final few weeks of the regular season.

During his postgame news conference, when he wasn’t throwing shade at Auburn, Alabama’s Oats asked me about Kentucky’s game against Georgia. I confirmed for Alabama’s coach the Big ‘L’ for Big Blue. Georgia defeated Kentucky 75-68 on Saturday, giving the Wildcats back-to-back losses for the week.

Kentucky (16-9, 7-5) dropped a home game to Arkansas (17-8, 6-6) on Tuesday, and the outcome against Georgia was big for Auburn. It allowed the Tigers to remain in fourth place in the SEC despite the loss to Alabama. The top four teams in the SEC receive a double-bye in the SEC Tournament.

Georgia (15-10, 5-7) made 25 of 29 free throws and only committed seven turnovers in its victory against Kentucky. Here’s how deep the SEC is this season. Georgia might still be able to work its way back into the conversation for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament despite currently being 11th in the SEC standings.

Kentucky isn’t out of it yet, in other words, and I know how much everyone would hate to see UK coach John Calipari miss the NCAA Tournament after his team was bounced by St. Peter’s in 2022. I think the SEC will end up getting eight teams in the field, which would tie the record. The league had six teams in the NCAA Tournament last year, but only Arkansas made it to the second weekend.

BUCKY BALL

Samford coach Bucky McMillan is two victories away from his second 20-win season in a row as a third-year college coach. Pretty good stuff. The Mountain Brook coaching legend was hired right before the beginning of the pandemic, so that first season shouldn’t even really count.

The Bulldogs defeated The Citadel 76-70 on Saturday to remain tied with Furman for first place in the SoCon. Jermaine Marshall of Hueytown had 23 points off the bench.

The Bulldogs (18-9, 12-2) remain tied with Furman atop the SoCon standings. Samford has two home games left in the regular season. There’s Wednesday’s game against UNC-Greensboro (6:30 p.m.), and then the season finale against Furman (2 p.m., Feb.25).

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’”. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.