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TAMU Postgame Thread


GwillMac6

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36 minutes ago, FoundationEagle said:

Left to be the interim head coach at a professional Canadian league team. Heads up an AAU academy now. I'd bet Pearl could pull him!  Certainly worth a shot. Would have to be an improvement over uhum..uhum...uhum...

was this a rich mcglynn special?

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I don't know why Auburn can't recruit top notch post players. I know Wiley is learning on the job, hopefully, his knee injury is not too serious. Spencer, who is out for the year, is not much of a scoring threat and probably never will be. But for some reason we never seem to have front court players who can turn Auburn basketball into a force to deal with. Anybody out there remember a guy, I think his name was Ernie Magri? He was a 7 footer. One game against Florida he poured in 33 points. Never did anything after that but just think what a quality front court could do for Auburn.

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4 minutes ago, milehighfan said:

I don't know why Auburn can't recruit top notch post players. I know Wiley is learning on the job, hopefully, his knee injury is not too serious. Spencer, who is out for the year, is not much of a scoring threat and probably never will be. But for some reason we never seem to have front court players who can turn Auburn basketball into a force to deal with. Anybody out there remember a guy, I think his name was Ernie Magri? He was a 7 footer. One game against Florida he poured in 33 points. Never did anything after that but just think what a quality front court could do for Auburn.

they are unicorns in the basketball world. They usually just go to the blue blood and top programs to be honest the highly touted and rated guys.

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1 minute ago, GwillMac6 said:

they are unicorns in the basketball world. They usually just go to the blue blood and top programs to be honest the highly touted and rated guys.

One thing for sure, they don't go to Auburn....Unless no other school will have them.

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12 minutes ago, milehighfan said:

One thing for sure, they don't go to Auburn....Unless no other school will have them.

just not a lot of blue chip post man coming out of high school. wings there is a surplus of but big guys? nope. Just glad wiley is a legacy and we recruit auburn basketball legacies better than football! haha

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8 hours ago, FoundationEagle said:

Left to be the interim head coach at a professional Canadian league team. Heads up an AAU academy now. I'd bet Pearl could pull him!  Certainly worth a shot. Would have to be an improvement over uhum..uhum...uhum...

Lots of pressure to hire the "rifleman"  I expect....and gonna be hard to get rid of him. AU taking care of its own ?

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9 hours ago, FoundationEagle said:

So you're saying our coaches are incapable of coming up with any game plan that doesn't include Spencer (who's impact outside of shot blocking has been minimal to begin with)?   And what about McLemore?  He doesn't count?  Missing 1 non impact player outside of shot blocking is no excuse for the team folding up shop for the season.  Also, the first several games he was out (suspended) were some of our best so that argument doesn't hold water to begin with. 

I'm saying there isn't a lot there to gameplay with. AU didn't face teams with size when Spencer was suspended. And yes, he has more than a minimal impact on the game. And no, I didn't forget about McLemore. He's 6-8 and has little hope of stopping guys like aTm had in the post defensively. 

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7 hours ago, milehighfan said:

 Anybody out there remember a guy, I think his name was Ernie Magri? He was a 7 footer. One game against Florida he poured in 33 points. Never did anything after that but just think what a quality front court could do for Auburn.

Ernie had two games where he killed 'em, 30+ points each time and both against Florida. Very odd career as he barely played in any other games while at Auburn. 7' or 7'1", I'd guess a good 300 pounds. He was from the Chicago area.

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7 minutes ago, jared52 said:

I'm saying there isn't a lot there to gameplay with. AU didn't face teams with size when Spencer was suspended. And yes, he has more than a minimal impact on the game. And no, I didn't forget about McLemore. He's 6-8 and has little hope of stopping guys like aTm had in the post defensively. 

That's a problem...but I was listening to some of the first half over SiriusXM while traveling and they were doing the TAMU call of the game....the announcers were just gleeful over the wide open shots their guys were getting.   Personally I've got no complaints about McLemore...has been a pleasant surprise to me and gives it his best and has stepped up as a more than adequate replacement for Spencer...JMO.   But we have a 6-7 guy who plays like he is about 6-2 and despite a hot start, Wiley is now playing like a guy who should be finishing his senior year of HS.  There is lots to speculate about as far as why he skipped his Sr. year and whether it was a good move but that was his parent's decision.....good or bad and it's done.   

What is curious to me is that in most games...for a good part of a game, our defense gives good chase but a team willing to pass the ball around quickly will always wind up with a wide open shot when an AU defender is late getting to the spot.   A patient offense will just about always be rewarded with a relatively easy shot against AU.

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9 minutes ago, AU64 said:

That's a problem...but I was listening to some of the first half over SiriusXM while traveling and they were doing the TAMU call of the game....the announcers were just gleeful over the wide open shots their guys were getting.   Personally I've got no complaints about McLemore...has been a pleasant surprise to me and gives it his best and has stepped up as a more than adequate replacement for Spencer...JMO.   But we have a 6-7 guy who plays like he is about 6-2 and despite a hot start, Wiley is now playing like a guy who should be finishing his senior year of HS.  There is lots to speculate about as far as why he skipped his Sr. year and whether it was a good move but that was his parent's decision.....good or bad and it's done.   

What is curious to me is that in most games...for a good part of a game, our defense gives good chase but a team willing to pass the ball around quickly will always wind up with a wide open shot when an AU defender is late getting to the spot.   A patient offense will just about always be rewarded with a relatively easy shot against AU.

A big reason for those wide open shots is because AU has to double team to help defend the post. The guards sink down to help the smaller (McLemore) or weaker (Wiley) post defender. That leaves shooters open. 

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Two things. Get rid of Chuck Person. Yea, he was a great player for us but if he can't get the job done let him go. Also, it's so depressing to know that after all the improvement we will most likely play in a Wednesday game at the SEC tournament again!

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13 hours ago, GwillMac6 said:

was this a rich mcglynn special?

It was more like a perfect storm. His brother was/is their head coach and was suspended for a year. Seeing as he had the same philosophies and had quality experience, it was a perfect bandaid for their team as well as getting him a resume boost as being a HC at the professional level. May not have been a wise move for him, but I'd bet it was his move to make. 

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4 hours ago, AU64 said:

Lots of pressure to hire the "rifleman"  I expect....and gonna be hard to get rid of him. AU taking care of its own ?

See my post above.  I think AU took care of their own when the opportunity arrived. Not so much pushed someone else out to make it happen. 

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5 hours ago, Mikey said:

Ernie had two games where he killed 'em, 30+ points each time and both against Florida. Very odd career as he barely played in any other games while at Auburn. 7' or 7'1", I'd guess a good 300 pounds. He was from the Chicago area.

Yeah, I remember he did have two really good games against Florida and rarely, if ever saw the court again. I still wondering why Auburn can't bring in some quality big men.

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11 hours ago, jared52 said:

A big reason for those wide open shots is because AU has to double team to help defend the post. The guards sink down to help the smaller (McLemore) or weaker (Wiley) post defender. That leaves shooters open. 

This.

I was sitting about 8 rows off the court yesterday in College Station and these things jumped out at me:

- We had no answer for their length.  The only way to beat that is to make outside shots and we couldn't hit the ocean yesterday.

- A&M closes out on the ball very quickly on defense.

- Anytime A&M wanted to go inside for an easy bucket, they could do it.  When we did double-team, the post players kicked it out for wide open shots.

- Their guards didn't miss wide open shots.  Ours did.

- We're a better, more fundamentally sound basketball team when Harper and Dunans are on the bench.

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Thanks TX.....interesting observations....the last is one that is hard to understand....our most experienced player and the freshman who started the season not looking like a freshman. 

BP noted that "we are not better...." and those two you mentioned are examples of guys who seem to have gone backward.   Just hard to understand what's cooking....especially since BP is probably struggling for answers too. 

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13 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

This.

I was sitting about 8 rows off the court yesterday in College Station and these things jumped out at me:

- We had no answer for their length.  The only way to beat that is to make outside shots and we couldn't hit the ocean yesterday.

- A&M closes out on the ball very quickly on defense.

- Anytime A&M wanted to go inside for an easy bucket, they could do it.  When we did double-team, the post players kicked it out for wide open shots.

- Their guards didn't miss wide open shots.  Ours did.

- We're a better, more fundamentally sound basketball team when Harper and Dunans are on the bench.

Totally agree on who are not getting better on D. I think Heron sometimes is not good on D too. Purifoy is weak too on D.

So what you have is very little in the way of good solid defenders. To allow a team to shoot over 60% is a real eye opener for how poor our D is. Although i saw there were times and stretches where they were playing pretty solid D, and TAMU still either got the ball to bounce their way or made a wild shot. I could see our players hang their head, even when they thought they played good D.

Let's hope they mentally continue to work on it...and show some improvement to the end of season...

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There's a lot of criticism of Person on here and I am as pissed about our defense as anyone. I know nobody is really calling for his job yet but I am willing to let him work with this core group and try to improve their defense for another 1-2 years. We should be treating this as the true year 1 under Bruce Pearl since we now have an actual foundation. If Person can't get these guys, who are all offensively-minded players (that's just how they're wired), to buy in on the defensive side of the ball in the next year or 2 then maybe we should start assessing if he's the man to be heading our defense. . We are what? 24th youngest team out of ~350? People are pissed about hearing "next year" but thats just the reality of the construction of our roster. Just enjoy our guys' progression.

For a football analogy, remember the road our core of Jason Campbell, Cadillac, Ronnie, Carlos Rogers, Rosegreen, etc had to take before being who they were as seniors? LOTS of bumps along the way. Lets let our 18 year olds have their natural progression to reach their peak. It's not the exact same as in football but there is still a process of progression that needs to occur before we get to the place we want to go. And I understand the NBA draft eligibility rules, high rate of transfers, etc make retaining full rosters from year to year more challenging than before and we are not working within a 4 year window but if things break and progress right this could be the most talented core group on a team we have seen at AU in a loooong time. 

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1 hour ago, Tiger said:

There's a lot of criticism of Person on here and I am as pissed about our defense as anyone. I know nobody is really calling for his job yet but I am willing to let him work with this core group and try to improve their defense for another 1-2 years. We should be treating this as the true year 1 under Bruce Pearl since we now have an actual foundation. If Person can't get these guys, who are all offensively-minded players (that's just how they're wired), to buy in on the defensive side of the ball in the next year or 2 then maybe we should start assessing if he's the man to be heading our defense. . We are what? 24th youngest team out of ~350? People are pissed about hearing "next year" but thats just the reality of the construction of our roster. Just enjoy our guys' progression.

There's no excuse to blow a 23 point lead in the 2nd half of a game. I'd at least somewhat be understanding had it been against Kentucky but it was against Ole Miss, a middle of the road team at best. I don't care if our roster is loaded with Freshman, it's inexcusable to blow a 23 point lead to an average team. That's alarming and speaks to coaching. This wasn't 1994 when LSU blew a 31 point lead to Kentucky, this was a middle of the road Ole Miss team that did this to us. Ole Miss may not even make the NIT either. That makes the loss even worse. 

Our guys haven't bought into playing defense this year and I don't see that changing much next year. We can give Person 1 more year to try to correct the defense but I have no confidence that it will get fixed. Because it's obvious that our strategy of shooting 3's and playing fast paced are not helping us and it only compounds our defense even more. Unless we make changes to our style of play on offense, then there's only marginal progress that will be made. Our guys look like they have no energy to play defense but instead use most of it on offense. Not only that but there have been numerous occasions where we just failed to get back on defense leading to opponents in transition going right the basket to score easy points, because we either sulked after missing a shot or were admiring a shot we made. There's no excuse to not get back to play defense in transition but it's become a habit and continues to happen every game.

It's not just effort, it's a lack of fundamentals altogether. You use a football analogy, look at our defense in football. It took us 2 head coaches, and 5 defensive coordinators for us to finally have a good defense. In that time span we had Seniors who would make bad plays and commit dumb penalties like late hits out of bounds, offsides, facemasks, etc...... We were finally able to field a good defense this past season and were more disciplined. 

Tony Barbee was brought up earlier, even as bad as his teams were with the lack of height and talent, they still played defense. It doesn't take all-american type talent to play defense. I remember when we beat Alabama 49-37 under Barbee. So don't tell me that it takes 3 years to coach players to play defense. 

Even in Barbee's worst year 2012-13 with a 9-23 record, opponents scored 80+ points 8 times. Barbee's teams played defense but lacked talent and were offensively challenged.

The Barbee era:

2010-11: opponents 80+ points - 4 times
2011-12: opponents 80+ points - 4 times
2012-13: opponents 80+ points - 8 times
2013-14: opponents 80+ points - 8 times

The Pearl era:

2014-15; opponents 80+ points - 9 times
2015-16: opponents 80+ points - 13 times

2016-17, which still has at least 5 games left, opponents have scored 80+ points 13 times

 

Now I'm not arguing that Barbee was a good coach, just that even as bad as we were, the team still played defense. I don't buy the argument it takes a couple of years for players to be coached to play defense. It's Pearl's decision if he wants to recruit offensively skilled players who don't play much defense. Pearl has built this team how he wants to. He knows the height of every player he recruits. If he recruits guys that are undersized but can score, then he knows the downside it has when it comes to playing defense. The fans will continue to come and support a bad product but at some point the regression has to stop. I know we have a young team but this year was a prime year to catch other programs who are also re-building and make a run at a post season tournament. Right now, our chances of making the NIT are slim and looks like our only chance of making it are to win out, which is unlikely given the team's recent struggles and regression. 

Our success on the court is going to affect recruiting if we don't get this turned around next year, folks will look at the talent we have and see the underachievement. I had no expectation of making the NCAA Tournament, I thought even talking about it was ridiculous but I did feel the NIT was within reach and possible if we got on a hot streak but that just hasn't happened.  I want Pearl to succeed but remember, Barbee only got 4 years. I know Barbee had other issues as well but is having more talent under Pearl but still not making the post-season a sign that things will get better? How long will it take?

It's NIT or bust next year for me. I've stated multiple times that it shouldn't take 5 years just to make the NIT. Hopefully Pearl can deliver next year.

On a side note, Northwestern, who's never been to the NCAA Tournament before, look like they might make the tournament this year. Their head coach Chris Collins, a former Duke player and graduate, is only in his 4th year there.

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I'm worried that BP is putting all his eggs in one basket with the types of guys he's recruiting. Most if not all of our players are very athletic, offensive-minded guys. I'm all for having great offensive talent but I think he needs to also recruit a few defensive-minded players with good fundamentals. I hate to be negative but I really don't see how next years going to be much better than this year. We lose Rojo, who's been really good, and Dunans, who even tho he's frustrating has bailed us out multiple times. We need major defensive improvements this offseason, and if that means firing the rifleman than so be it

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32 minutes ago, Auburnfan91 said:

There's no excuse to blow a 23 point lead in the 2nd half of a game.  I'd at least somewhat be understanding had it been against Kentucky but it was against Ole Miss, a middle of the road team at best. I don't care if our roster is loaded with Freshman, it's inexcusable to blow a 23 point lead to an average team. That's alarming and speaks to coaching. This wasn't 1994 when LSU blew a 31 point lead to Kentucky, this was a middle of the road Ole Miss team that did this to us. Ole Miss may not even make the NIT either. That makes the loss even worse. 

Our guys haven't bought into playing defense this year and I don't see that changing much next year. We can give Person 1 more year to try to correct the defense but I have no confidence that it will get fixed. Because it's obvious that our strategy of shooting 3's and playing fast paced are not helping us and it only compounds our defense even more. Unless we make changes to our style of play on offense, then there's only marginal progress that will be made. Our guys look like they have no energy to play defense but instead use most of it on offense. Not only that but there have been numerous occasions where we just failed to get back on defense leading to opponents in transition going right the basket to score easy points, because we either sulked after missing a shot or were admiring a shot we made. There's no excuse to not get back to play defense in transition but it's become a habit and continues to happen every game.

It's not just effort, it's a lack of fundamentals altogether. You use a football analogy, look at our defense in football. It took us 2 head coaches, and 5 defensive coordinators for us to finally have a good defense. In that time span we had Seniors who would make bad plays and commit dumb penalties like late hits out of bounds, offsides, facemasks, etc...... We were finally able to field a good defense this past season and were more disciplined. 

Tony Barbee was brought up earlier, even as bad as his teams were with the lack of height and talent, they still played defense. It doesn't take all-american type talent to play defense. I remember when we beat Alabama 49-37 under Barbee. So don't tell me that it takes 3 years to coach players to play defense. 

Even in Barbee's worst year 2012-13 with a 9-23 record, opponents scored 80+ points 8 times. Barbee's teams played defense but lacked talent and were offensively challenged.

The Barbee era:

2010-11: opponents 80+ points - 4 times
2011-12: opponents 80+ points - 4 times
2012-13: opponents 80+ points - 8 times
2013-14: opponents 80+ points - 8 times

The Pearl era:

2014-15; opponents 80+ points - 9 times
2015-16: opponents 80+ points - 13 times

2016-17, which still has at least 5 games left, opponents have scored 80+ points 13 times

 

Now I'm not arguing that Barbee was a good coach, just that even as bad as we were, the team still played defense. I don't buy the argument it takes a couple of years for players to be coached to play defense. It's Pearl's decision if he wants to recruit offensively skilled players who don't play much defense. Pearl has built this team how he wants to. He knows the height of every player he recruits. If he recruits guys that are undersized but can score, then he knows the downside it has when it comes to playing defense. The fans will continue to come and support a bad product but at some point the regression has to stop. I know we have a young team but this year was a prime year to catch other programs who are also re-building and make a run at a post season tournament. Right now, our chances of making the NIT are slim and looks like our only chance of making it are to win out, which is unlikely given the team's recent struggles and regression. 

Our success on the court is going to affect recruiting if we don't get this turned around next year, folks will look at the talent we have and see the underachievement. I had no expectation of making the NCAA Tournament, I thought even talking about it was ridiculous but I did feel the NIT was within reach and possible if we got on a hot streak but that just hasn't happened.  I want Pearl to succeed but remember, Barbee only got 4 years. I know Barbee had other issues as well but is having more talent under Pearl but still not making the post-season a sign that things will get better? How long will it take?

It's NIT or bust next year for me. I've stated multiple times that it shouldn't take 5 years just to make the NIT. Hopefully Pearl can deliver next year.

On a side note, Northwestern, who's never been to the NCAA Tournament before, look like they might make the tournament this year. Their head coach Chris Collins, a former Duke player and graduate, is only in his 4th year there.

I understand everything you are saying and your points are all valid.  I'm just looking at Pearl's UT teams and I'm willing to give him a longer leash due to his history in the SEC to get us there and the fact that our program has only found a footing to be build off of 3 months ago. I can wait a little longer because (IMO) I KNOW we have a coach capable of doing so rather than before we were hoping unproven coaches could take us to the next level. Bruce has been there so I have more trust in him than I would most other coaches. So while the negatives you touched on are no where close to where we want to be I, personally, am willing to let some of it slide until we can see how the development of the guys Bruce is bringing in from high school takes place -- the only player that's been in the program for more than 1.5 years is TJ Lang who's limitations put him at a role player on a good team on his best day. It is not acceptable to lose 20 pt leads to mediocre teams, please don't think I'm saying otherwise, but I'm letting it slide today with the confidence that it will be corrected in the near future. You may be right though. Our group of guys may never play good defense. Maybe we need to recruit some bonafide defenders too, but as far as our offense goes IMO we have to play fast because we struggle mightily in a half court offense. It does sometimes look like the entire team has forgotten the play/plays we are supposed to be running at once. IDK why players have to be told to move without the ball. I personally think/hope time will help us, you disagree and that is fine. I have been wrong many times before and will be wrong many times again. Honestly I don't know what else Bruce can do because he's having heart attacks trying to get the guys trying to the right things on the both sides of the ball during the game (you can hear him on the broadcasts and also during his mic'd up segments) but for some reason during the games the guys are just not able to THINK the game properly -- and it's possible they never will.

Bruce's teams, even at their height, always made you feel like they weren't playing the smartest or most organized ball but made up for it by making the opponent's life hectic trying to score and bring the ball up the court (which if we were even just "bad" on defense at this point would be an upgrade), playing with frenetic pace, being dangerous from the outside, and overwhelming teams with their athleticism and length. 

We suck badly at rebounding so that is making our already subpar (to put it kindly) defense have to guard multiple possessions on many trips down the court.

Overall I choose to see how well this team plays in spurts and the team that can get up 20 on mediocre teams in 1 half or a team that goes bucket for bucket with Florida in a half rather than focus on the halves where we give up 20 or get blown out. Because to me, our highs are at the level I think our young guys can play at consistently in time. And our lows are basically the level that a team full of freshman are going to give you from time to time. If we have an experienced roster and still have these issues I think it will signify a bigger problem than what we have today.

 

Back to a football analogy -- 2015 we lost basically all of our close games. In 2016 we learned how to close those games out. Considering our football program was very young for both last season and the 2015 season that showed us we are going in the right direction. If next season we are still fluctuating wildly between our good spurts and bad spurts rather than leveling out towards our good spurts and still blowing big leads there will be a more serious concern IMO. Again, your post brings up some good points I'm just choosing to look at it as if we still have time to turn the corner with this group of guys. We are technically in year 3 but year 1 and 2 were just "lets just have enough bodies on the court to buy us time to get talent in here". We are now cultivating the talent and going to get a chance to develop them. This is year 1 IMO and we are 1 win away from having the first non-losing season since 09 or something. We are taking steps, they might not be huge leaps but we ARE going in the right direction which you could never really say under our last 2 coaches. Bottom line, I am willing to give Bruce longer than our last 2 hires because to be honest we aren't going to be upgrading from Bruce Pearl if he leaves.

lol TLDR?

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It seems like one of BP's biggest mistakes this year was not being tougher on these guys. He said they don't respond well whenever he's hard on them but if he's coaching for next year I don't see why he couldn't get the hard part out of the way now and Instill discipline. Thats really what this team needs. If we can toughen these guys up it will be magical. That would help lead to more effort and defensive intensity. It may also lead them to play together more but that should come with time. But I'm surprised and disappointed that he hasn't been harder on these guys. I know they don't take criticism well but they'd get over it and be better 

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8 minutes ago, au302 said:

It seems like one of BP's biggest mistakes this year was not being tougher on these guys. He said they don't respond well whenever he's hard on them but if he's coaching for next year I don't see why he couldn't get the hard part out of the way now and Instill discipline. Thats really what this team needs. If we can toughen these guys up it will be magical. That would help lead to more effort and defensive intensity. It may also lead them to play together more but that should come with time. But I'm surprised and disappointed that he hasn't been harder on these guys. I know they don't take criticism well but they'd get over it and be better 

Hope you are right but seems that too often, guys who don't take criticism well just pull up stakes and go if they get unhappy with their coach.  

My kids tell me this is a new era...and the discipline style that worked on them will not work on my pre-millenial grand children....

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2 hours ago, AU64 said:

Hope you are right but seems that too often, guys who don't take criticism well just pull up stakes and go if they get unhappy with their coach.  

My kids tell me this is a new era...and the discipline style that worked on them will not work on my pre-millenial grand children....

2

Your right. Kids today are soft and don't handle criticism well at all. There have been a ridiculous amount of college basketball transfers over the years. I think AAU is part of the problem because the coaches praise the kids waaaay more than they should and the kids don't learn to play defense or play with fierce effort.  I've heard people question the toughness of these guys but I really do think we have good guys from good families.  Anfernee, Mustapha, and Austin all seem like really good kids.  Don't know as much about Harper but he also seems like a very nice guy.  DP and Brown have both whined on twitter some this year but Brown plays harder than anyone on the team and DP should be ok. I don't know. Maybe we lose a guy or two to transfers but it seems like all these guys love BP so I don't think we'd have a bunch of transfers if Bruce toughens up this offseason, which he most likely will.

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20 hours ago, Auburnfan91 said:

There's no excuse to blow a 23 point lead in the 2nd half of a game. I'd at least somewhat be understanding had it been against Kentucky but it was against Ole Miss, a middle of the road team at best. I don't care if our roster is loaded with Freshman, it's inexcusable to blow a 23 point lead to an average team. That's alarming and speaks to coaching. This wasn't 1994 when LSU blew a 31 point lead to Kentucky, this was a middle of the road Ole Miss team that did this to us. Ole Miss may not even make the NIT either. That makes the loss even worse. 

Our guys haven't bought into playing defense this year and I don't see that changing much next year. We can give Person 1 more year to try to correct the defense but I have no confidence that it will get fixed. Because it's obvious that our strategy of shooting 3's and playing fast paced are not helping us and it only compounds our defense even more. Unless we make changes to our style of play on offense, then there's only marginal progress that will be made. Our guys look like they have no energy to play defense but instead use most of it on offense. Not only that but there have been numerous occasions where we just failed to get back on defense leading to opponents in transition going right the basket to score easy points, because we either sulked after missing a shot or were admiring a shot we made. There's no excuse to not get back to play defense in transition but it's become a habit and continues to happen every game.

It's not just effort, it's a lack of fundamentals altogether. You use a football analogy, look at our defense in football. It took us 2 head coaches, and 5 defensive coordinators for us to finally have a good defense. In that time span we had Seniors who would make bad plays and commit dumb penalties like late hits out of bounds, offsides, facemasks, etc...... We were finally able to field a good defense this past season and were more disciplined. 

Tony Barbee was brought up earlier, even as bad as his teams were with the lack of height and talent, they still played defense. It doesn't take all-american type talent to play defense. I remember when we beat Alabama 49-37 under Barbee. So don't tell me that it takes 3 years to coach players to play defense. 

Even in Barbee's worst year 2012-13 with a 9-23 record, opponents scored 80+ points 8 times. Barbee's teams played defense but lacked talent and were offensively challenged.

The Barbee era:

2010-11: opponents 80+ points - 4 times
2011-12: opponents 80+ points - 4 times
2012-13: opponents 80+ points - 8 times
2013-14: opponents 80+ points - 8 times

The Pearl era:

2014-15; opponents 80+ points - 9 times
2015-16: opponents 80+ points - 13 times

2016-17, which still has at least 5 games left, opponents have scored 80+ points 13 times

 

Now I'm not arguing that Barbee was a good coach, just that even as bad as we were, the team still played defense. I don't buy the argument it takes a couple of years for players to be coached to play defense. It's Pearl's decision if he wants to recruit offensively skilled players who don't play much defense. Pearl has built this team how he wants to. He knows the height of every player he recruits. If he recruits guys that are undersized but can score, then he knows the downside it has when it comes to playing defense. The fans will continue to come and support a bad product but at some point the regression has to stop. I know we have a young team but this year was a prime year to catch other programs who are also re-building and make a run at a post season tournament. Right now, our chances of making the NIT are slim and looks like our only chance of making it are to win out, which is unlikely given the team's recent struggles and regression. 

Our success on the court is going to affect recruiting if we don't get this turned around next year, folks will look at the talent we have and see the underachievement. I had no expectation of making the NCAA Tournament, I thought even talking about it was ridiculous but I did feel the NIT was within reach and possible if we got on a hot streak but that just hasn't happened.  I want Pearl to succeed but remember, Barbee only got 4 years. I know Barbee had other issues as well but is having more talent under Pearl but still not making the post-season a sign that things will get better? How long will it take?

It's NIT or bust next year for me. I've stated multiple times that it shouldn't take 5 years just to make the NIT. Hopefully Pearl can deliver next year.

On a side note, Northwestern, who's never been to the NCAA Tournament before, look like they might make the tournament this year. Their head coach Chris Collins, a former Duke player and graduate, is only in his 4th year there.

From a raw data standpoint, the defensive numbers look really bad. But if you look at efficiency, this team is better than either of Pearl's first two Auburn teams and on par with two of his NCAA Tennessee teams. Looking at efficiency numbers, Pearl's teams were pretty successful on at least one end of the court during his time at Tennessee. The years they weren't great defensively they made up for it by being extremely efficient offensively. And the years they were really efficient defensively they were still very efficient offensively. Since Pearl likes to push the pace, it requires efficiency more so than dominance on one end or the other. Dominance would be nice, but it's really difficult to do defensively when you allow opponents as many possessions as Pearl's system allows. Unfortunately, lately there hasn't been much offensive efficiency, which significantly affects the defensive efficiency. Pearl has only had one team since his Tennessee coaching days that was a great, efficient defense. Most of their great seasons involved very efficient offensive basketball. Auburn isn't efficient offensively right now and was never great defensively to begin with. So, it makes the defense look much worse than it probably should.

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