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Things I saw - Eastern Kentucky


JwgreDeux

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Preview: 

 

Here is a decent article about our game this evening: http://www.al.com/auburnbasketball/index.ssf/2016/11/auburn_basketball_eastern_kent.html#incart_river_index

Some initial thoughts:

This game is about one thing, Auburn, period. Eastern doesn't have the roster to stay in this game, unless we allow it. They don't have a size or skill advantage, in fact, we have both, and we're at home. Eastern does have a nice one two punch in their post player Mayo #10 and their pg Gist #2. However, Mayo is a 6'9" stretch four playing center, and Gist might be smaller than Harper. Gist can break guys down and loves to drive and draw fouls, so this will be a test for our bigs to avoid foul trouble early in the game. Our perimeter defense should be too much for Eastern to handle for a full game, even if Mayo has a good night. Eastern has scored 97 in one of their games,  but they gave up 87 in that same game, which leads me to my next point. Easter gives up a lot of points, to the tune of 84 per game, not including the 71 they gave up in an exhibition to Georgetown....College (Kentucky) a NAIA program.

 

Bottom Line: We should win. The only way it is close is if we don't play hard. Are our boys dreaming of their upcoming trip to Cancun or are they salivating over the chance to tee off on an undermanned squad? We shall see. 

 

Vegas line: Auburn -15

Tip time : 8pm SEC Network

Edited by JwgreDeux
Edited to include post game observations
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Well, I'd say it played just about as expected. Depth and pressure opened up the game in the last 10 minutes, and Heron had a career night. 

This game was different from the first two, in that our guys seemed to be forcing the action too much, knowing they were the much better team. I guess that I should better to see than sloppiness due to being flat. 

We dominated the glass, due to great effort and our size advantage in this one. We didn't shoot great percentages but it wasn't terrible either. The worst shooting performance was from the free throw line. We have to improve here. The reason we scored in the 80s was due to offensive rebounding rather than a good percentage.

Johnson provided a nice spark along with McLemore around the 12 minute mark of the second half when we finally separated from Eastern. 

 

The best news is that again the defensive effort was good with every group that hit the floor. This has been the case in every game so far and will give us a chance to win more games than others expect. Holding teams to the low 60s will give us a chance to win every game. 

Cancun is next. 

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Defense has been an excellent surprise so far. Guys are getting after it. We'll give some away some freebies with how we press but overall we were in their face when they were trying to shot. Gave some open looks to the big man but most nights you give the big guy that shot and assume he'll miss more then he makes. 

Great night for R. Johnson. Harper was struggling and he came in a smoothed out the offense and made some nice shots. Great 1-2 punch there. Another thing i'm starting to notice that is a nice surprise is that we have 4 guys that can guard the other team's big man. Spencer, Leron, Purifoy, and McLemore all have the ability. Now it is certainly not the ideal spot for the latter 2 but they are both athletic and strong enough to get the job done. Having this will really help down the road

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20 hours ago, bigbird said:

McLemore has been very impressive to me. His minutes should go up a lot, IMO

They will if he can improve defensively. 

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i flipped back and forth from this game to two football games. i am not familiar with our lineup but i liked the pure athletism and effort.

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