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What I saw - Kentucky


JwgreDeux

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We had a small margin for error, and just made too many mistakes to pull this one off. However, I was encouraged by what this team showed, without Purifoy, at Kentucky. Despite a first half where UK had it going, and looked like they were capable of putting the game away early, we fought and scraped to keep it close early, going into half down 12. In the second half, it was the Auburn that was the aggressor cutting the lead to 4 with 12 minutes to go, and after another run from Kentucky, cutting to 6 with 8 to go. At this point, we simply weren't able to finish the job and they pulled away late. I am not blaming the game on the refs, but the foul disparity was crazy, 31-18 is suspect, period, plain and simple. That is all I will say on that issue. We exacerbated that issue, by not shooting well from the line ourselves. 

Dunans, again showed how valuable he is, and I'm happy for him, as there has been plenty of chatter calling for him to be benched. Myself and others defended him and his style of play, and we would have been run out of that gym without him. We needed a big game from Wiley, Brown and Harper, and we simply didn't get it. None were bad, but we needed above their averages and that didn't happen. Wiley was hamper with foul trouble, and that is going to happen to him as he continues to learn. 

We actually shot the ball pretty well (other than free throws) 47% from the field and 56% from three, but only 33% from the charity stripe. We allowed one of the best teams in the country to make 12 more free throws than we did, can't win like that. They shot 57% from the field and from three, can't win like that. We attempted 6 more field goals than they did, but they attempted 17 more free-throws than we did. As is to be expected when we play 4 guards, we were out rebounded by 12 boards. I did wish we would have shot more from the outside. We were shooting it well, and I would have liked to have seen more outside attempts personally. 

It was great to see this team fight and scrap and respond to runs when UK made them. I hope they are encouraged, humbled, and challenged by this game. To realize we can play with anyone, but we need to be better together to actually win. This team has played well for most of the conference schedule (not Vandy) but only has one win. Close doesn't count and they have to get that taste for blood to finish off some games. 

CBP did a few interesting things. First he did cut the primary rotation down to 8 guys, which I thought was a good move. He also elected to start Dunans instead of McLemore, and went with 4 guards. 

Despite the disappointing finish, we did improve our RPI over the course of this week, from the 90's down to 83. The next week will be huge for this team. LSU and Bama at home are both games we can win, and that would put us at 3-4 in the league,  improve our RPI, and put us at 13-6 overall . It starts with LSU on Wednesday. 

 

War Eagle.

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Have to agree with this solid post game commentary. I think that UK players were as bewildered at the refs as we were. That was a strange game although the fifth foul on Wiley may have been a moving screen. I hope the zebras just let the guys play this week. That was a whistle every time you turned around. Dunans showed amazing ability to be a Slasher to the hoop and it really caught UK off guard (npi).He damn near stole the show. LSU and Bama will see the tape and be ready for him, but we'll see if he stays ahead of the posse'. Should be fun to watch. We were really up for that game and I hope that there is residual spillover in the LSU game. No spillover needed for the Alabama game as they will be up for the rivalry. Not saying they are not getting themselves up for every game, but there is getting up for a game and there is getting up for UK and we all know that there is a higher gear where players come out of their shoes from the sheer adrenalin of the moment and that was one such moment. This is a big week at home and we could really find our stride with 2 Ws, just like we did with Oklahoma and UConn during Mustapha's hometown parade. WDE!

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Thanks for the recap, i was out of town so didn't get a chance to watch or even follow the game. I checked once and saw we were down by 10 and was disappointed to see the final score was around 20 i believe. So it is good to hear the team fought back hard from UK runs and kept the game competitive. I'm worried about the ref trend we are seeing. Anyone have an opinion on if Pearle rides the refs any harder than other coaches and maybe the refs are being a little biased against AU? I think it was the ol miss game but it seemed like one ref in particular was calling everything against us. Same guy who called the BS hanging on the rim call on McClemore. 

Next 2 games are big for the season. We really need to win these next 2 games to keep NIT and outside NCAA hopes alive. 

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Really worried about LSU. They're really bad but I can see us either playing poorly or taking a big lead and then get sloppy and letting them come back. Should be a win but we need to play smart the whole 40 minutes. For Bama we'll play hard because it's a huge rivalry so I think the better team should win that one. We'll see, I'm worried and excited so it's gonna be a fun week

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3 hours ago, gravejd said:

Thanks for the recap, i was out of town so didn't get a chance to watch or even follow the game. I checked once and saw we were down by 10 and was disappointed to see the final score was around 20 i believe. So it is good to hear the team fought back hard from UK runs and kept the game competitive. I'm worried about the ref trend we are seeing. Anyone have an opinion on if Pearle rides the refs any harder than other coaches and maybe the refs are being a little biased against AU? I think it was the ol miss game but it seemed like one ref in particular was calling everything against us. Same guy who called the BS hanging on the rim call on McClemore. 

Next 2 games are big for the season. We really need to win these next 2 games to keep NIT and outside NCAA hopes alive. 

IDK if there is any ref bias from this but Bruce rides the refs almost like no other. I can't say I blame him either there is a lot of BS that is being called out there on a nightly basis.

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2 hours ago, au302 said:

Really worried about LSU. They're really bad but I can see us either playing poorly or taking a big lead and then get sloppy and letting them come back. Should be a win but we need to play smart the whole 40 minutes. For Bama we'll play hard because it's a huge rivalry so I think the better team should win that one. We'll see, I'm worried and excited so it's gonna be a fun week

This is a concern for us every game to be honest, not just tomorrow. Due to our youth it is a safe bet that we won't play smart for a full 40 minutes unless we are out-talenting the opposition but when we have 3-5 minute stretches of poor offense we need to step it up exponentially on defense so the hole we put ourselves in is not impossible to climb out of (like the Vandy game -- we start the game in a 19 point hole in the first 5 minutes and lose by that exact margin, or blowing the double digit lead against UGA and never recovering..). Doing damage control on defense with our streaky offense will be the major key to watch for in these next 2 games IMO.

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Yea this is definitely something that happens frequently. LSU plays zero defense and only have a few guys who can really score so we should hopefully be ok but we shall see

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1 hour ago, Tiger said:

This is a concern for us every game to be honest, not just tomorrow. Due to our youth it is a safe bet that we won't play smart for a full 40 minutes unless we are out-talenting the opposition but when we have 3-5 minute stretches of poor offense we need to step it up exponentially on defense so the hole we put ourselves in is not impossible to climb out of (like the Vandy game -- we start the game in a 19 point hole in the first 5 minutes and lose by that exact margin, or blowing the double digit lead against UGA and never recovering..). Doing damage control on defense with our streaky offense will be the major key to watch for in these next 2 games IMO.

I feel that these are the moments when we should go to Wiley. Say we don't score on two or three possessions in a row, then we can throw it into our big man in the center for a higher percentage shot. It will also get Wiley more comfortable in a scoring role.

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I agree. We need to feed Wiley more often. I've also noticed that he's a good clean up guy off missed lay ups. I think we're much better when we attack the rim than when we try to shoot all day. I think we did a better job of this against Kentucky and we need to stick to it this week

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7 hours ago, AUTigersfan89 said:

I feel that these are the moments when we should go to Wiley. Say we don't score on two or three possessions in a row, then we can throw it into our big man in the center for a higher percentage shot. It will also get Wiley more comfortable in a scoring role.

Even if we don't score when we throw it to Wiley down low but 1-2 out of every four possessions, a post presence will open things up for a good shooting team in basketball like a running game will for a good passing team in football. So when our shooters are off, it would seem like the logical thing to do would be a more post-based offense with Wiley/Spencer. In my opinion anyway. 

 

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