Thursday, January 13 Auburn-ing up the SEC By Pat Forde Special to ESPN.com

AUBURN, Ala. -- Small blobs of flaming toilet paper blew into the sky over Toomer's Corner at about 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, capping one of the wildest nights in recent local memory and making it official:

Auburn basketball had caught fire.

As any devoted southern football fan knows, Toomer's Corner is where the Tiger faithful goes to throw a few hundred rolls of Charmin onto the trees to celebrate big wins. But forget about football. Auburn's inspired 66-63 basketball victory over Kentucky on Tuesday night was definitely a TP Event -- especially since the fans had plenty of rolls in storage after another forgettable football season.

So they bombed the trees in the usual fashion. But this was far from the usual victory. If you wanted to know exactly how big this was, you had to be there when some fool took it to the next level, as we are wont to say in sports, and set the stuff on fire.

The fire department was not amused, but after a quick spraying it was obvious that the trees were largely unharmed. Still standing and ready for the next round of coverage -- which with this basketball team could come soon.

Per capita toilet paper sales in Auburn could once again lead the nation.

The Tigers are legit.

Cliff Ellis, the Auburn coach, was walking out of Beard-Eaves Coliseum about an hour before things went up in flames across campus. A Styrofoam food container in his hand indicated how long a day it had been prepping for this momentous event. A smile on his face indicated how pleased he was that his team had defended its No. 5 ranking and embellished its reputation.

"This was great for these people," Ellis said, gesturing to the stands where 11,000 fans had gone nuts not long before. "Kentucky sees this all the time, but these people don't."

Truly, this is the kind of game Kentucky has played a thousand times before: A gym full of freaks, the tickets all sold, the student body geeked, Dick Vitale in the house, the need for nebulous "respect" in the air....

Been there. Won that.

But not Tuesday night. Up 14 in the first half, down five in the second, the Tigers once again appeared unprepared for the challenge of scaling Mount Cat. Their 15th straight loss to the league bully looked inevitable.

Then Chris Porter pulled a Willis Reed, coming back after leaving the game with an elbow injury. And Daymeon Fishback, a Kentucky native, kept tossing in big shots. And Doc Robinson took over at prove-it time.

"Kentucky's been at us ever since we've been here," Fishback, a senior, said. "We'll take this victory any night."

Funny thing about this Auburn team. It is ranked fifth in the nation but always stewing about a lack of respect. That might seem contrived, but there is something to their plaint.

Take last year. The Tigers were undefeated rolling into January. Tennessee coach Jerry Green piped up and noted that Auburn "hadn't played anybody."

By the time Auburn was through with the Vols, they still hadn't played anybody. The Tigers blew out Tennessee 90-62.

And take last week. After his team lost to Auburn, Georgia coach Jim Harrick, without significant media goading, opined that the Tigers didn't have Final Four-caliber guards.

By the time Auburn was through with Kentucky, Harrick should have been e-mailing an apology. Robinson, the Tigers' point guard, put up 18 points, nine assists and only one turnover. As a bonus, he dropped in the winning 3-pointer with 30 seconds left over a bamboozled Saul Smith, left hanging by Robinson's move at the top of the key.

So it can put a chip on the shoulder when coaches, usually the most decorous and laudatory of people, are taking shots at you.

"I think people are still trying to get used to Auburn as a major player," Ellis said the day before the game. "All I can do is speak on the last 15 months, as we won the SEC championship and reached the Sweet 16. These same guards now are the same guards then.

"A lot of it has to do with the fact that people are having a hard time accepting it."

Said Porter: "People are still not looking at us as one of the top contenders in the nation."

That's why the Kentucky game was so vital here. Auburn's No. 5 ranking was based more on reputation earned for last year's season, which ended with a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, than anything accomplished this year.

Blame the schedule for that. Aside from playing Stanford in the Wooden Classic, Auburn was back on Easy Street, taking on the lightweight likes of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Belmont, Coppin State, Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and Stony Brook.

Kentucky, meanwhile, sauntered in having played a murderous schedule. And it appeared to be paying off as the Wildcats played through the manic crowd noise, methodically erased the early deficit and seized that five-point lead with less than eight minutes to play.

This was prime el foldo time for a wanna-be program. But from that point on, Auburn played like it has graduated from wanna-be status.

Now it just needs to get its fans through classes as well. The Auburn faithful stormed the court with such ferocity that one of the officials was knocked to the floor and the Wildcats were marooned in a heaving sea of orange.

Guys and girls: Auburn is ranked No. 5 in the ESPN/USA Today poll. Kentucky is No. 23.

"It's an upset to them," Kentucky's Tayshaun Prince said. "They hadn't beaten us in a while. It's an upset to us, too."

A set-the-trees-on-fire upset, as it turned out.

Pat Forde of the Louisville Courier-Journal is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.