The distance between Alabama and Auburn most often has been measured in miles or touchdowns, but now the schools are separated primarily by years.
The Crimson Tide is deep in juniors who understand how to play basketball at the Division I level; the Tigers are overburdened with freshmen who only are beginning to learn.
That is the main reason you'll find the Tide at the top of the SEC West standings and the Tigers at the bottom.
\At this level, in this league, you don't know what to expect on a given night,"" Auburn Coach Cliff Ellis said. ""Through the course of a game, there might be a circumstance these freshmen haven't seen before. Inexperienced teams have to learn to play through chaos. That's a thing veteran teams have learned.'
If there is one factor that explains what has transpired in the first three months of this puzzling season, it's that experience is not optional. The teams that have enjoyed the greatest success'and those that made surprising surges from the preseason fringe'largely have been populated by upperclassmen.
Cincinnati barged into the top five with three seniors and two juniors starting. Oklahoma starts one senior and three juniors. Southern California has three senior starters and one junior. Indiana sends out two seniors and two juniors.
Nearly every ""Where did they come from?"" question has the same answer.
Of the players who start for the top 25 teams in last week's Sporting News Power Poll, 68 percent are juniors or seniors. Only eight of those 125 starters (6.4 percent) are freshmen who start regularly.
Three'Kansas guard Aaron Miles, Alabama guard Maurice Williams and USC wing Errick Craven'start for teams that were ranked in the top 10.
""Unless the freshmen are so talented,' Ohio State Coach Jim O'Brien said, ""there's no substitute for experience.""
That experience can be gained throughout the course of a season. Arizona's 1997 championship team had three players, including freshman point guard Mike Bibby, who were in their first season as starters. The Wildcats did not completely figure themselves out until the Sweet 16.
But we no longer see many freshmen whose size and ability are so overwhelming they can alter the game even before they comprehend it. Power forward Kwame Brown would have been like that at Florida this season, but he wound up instead as the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft.
Freshman guard Dajuan Wagner probably would have been an early draft pick last June but chose to play in college at Memphis.
The difference between Wagner and Duke's junior guard Jason Williams is the difference between someone who has played nearly 100 college games and one who has played slightly more than 20. Williams knows more little tricks to get open and how to read a defender's movements when running him off a screen, which helps explain why Williams shoots 46.5 percent and Wagner 41.
In four seasons as a starter, Ohio State senior guard Brian Brown has played for a Final Four team and a Big Ten champion.
So it was almost a given that when the Buckeyes lumbered through a sleepy home game against Northwestern, Brown and junior guard Brent Darby combined for 13 of 21 shooting and 36 of their team's 58 points in a comeback victory essential to the Buckeyes' Big Ten title pursuit.
""Without question,"" O'Brien says, ""if you have experienced guards, that covers a lot of mistakes from a lot of other people.""
There is no guarantee teams will succeed merely because they are experienced'even if those veterans have significant talent. UCLA starts three seniors and a junior and still has managed to play such dismal road games as a 29-point debacle at Oregon. With two seniors and three juniors starting, Illinois was similarly wretched in a loss at Indiana, and it is 0-6 on the road, counting a virtual away game in Phoenix against Arizona.
It's essential the veterans play with the cohesiveness and confidence demonstrated by Alabama. With four sophomore starters and no true point guard last season, the Tide was 1-7 on the road in the SEC and missed the NCAA Tournament.
With those sophomores now juniors, the record has improved to 3-1 on the SEC road and 6-3 in all games played away from Tuscaloosa.
""We don't panic,"" Alabama Head Coach Mark Gottfried says. ""Teams would make a run at us in the past, and we would become very impatient. We did not have a player who could deliver consistently ... Now, they collectively have the confidence they can make plays they need to, withstand somebody making a run with the crowd getting loud.
""We watched these guys grow up. It's good and bad. Everybody wants to play as a freshman; they were all playing as freshmen together. Now, you're getting a chance to see a team that not only is experienced but is close.""
Not just close to one another but also to a championship season.
