Men VS. Alabama Game Thread

[ellitor 33,062]

3 hours ago, doverstutts said:

no, my bad, I was just going by a post on 24/7...Good for us, if true

@doverstutts You're thinking of Kennedy Chandler. We are very much in Kuminga's top 10 & likely top 2 with Kentucky.

[ellitor 33,062]

5 hours ago, Kaiiu said:

Have we heard anything new about him?

@Kaiiu Nothing other than what's in his thread which sounds positive.

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,641]

Kuminga might be better but I didn’t blow 100+ posts to not get Green lmao 

[AURex 1,984]

I think we all knew a loss would come. Hate on me if you want, but the reality is that Auburn is way over-rated at this point. Auburn still has not played a ranked team.

I'm REALLY disappointed that the first loss comes to Bama. I'm EVEN MORE disappointed that it was a blowout. Not even close.

I'll be looking for revenge when Bama comes to Auburn Arena!

In the meanwhile, Bruce really needs to figure out how to help the Tigers score points.

 

[Tiger 8,817]

I have all the trust in the world in Bruce to squeeze every bit of ability out of this team. We looked doomed after the Kentucky game last year. But he uses these things as teaching moments and his process is tried and true over multiple decades. I don't know if we win tomorrow but we definitely won't play like garbage like we did vs Bama -- and that's not being overly harsh I'm pretty sure everyone on the team would agree with that assessment. 31% shooting, 21 TOs, and awful at the stripe is just bad basketball.

[AUDynasty 585]

I agree with @GwillMac6 that we overachieved as a team so far--and this is not a bad thing! If anything, it shows the genius of Bruce Pearl's coaching. To be honest, I don't think anyone here was foreseeing a 15-0 start to our season when more than 60% of our scoring production from last season left! We knew a game like this was coming, and I echo with a lot of your statements that we hated it had to be Alabama. It is what it is. But if we could bounce back against Florida, the game that a lot of experts and stimulations have chalked up as a loss, this would be significant.

If this game doesn't help our teammates to practice our free throws more, I don't know what game will. It's been consistently inconsistent and some of these inconsistent games were atrocious. 

[AU64 10,122]

14 hours ago, AURex said:

In the meanwhile, Bruce really needs to figure out how to help the Tigers score points.

I'd like to see more discipline from the shooters.  

Last year it seemed OK to give guys like Dunbar, Brown and Harper the green light anytime they wanted to shoot but this year, we don't have  the shooters to allow guys like AMac and others to be firing up 25 footers the first time they touch the ball on the offensive end.    With a bunch of guys shooting from 25-30% on three point attempts, they are mostly just creating wasted trips down the floor.    Johnson hitting well over 40% and seems to have earned the right....otherwise ?  not so much. 

[steeleagle 2,945]

2 hours ago, AU64 said:

I'd like to see more discipline from the shooters.  

Last year it seemed OK to give guys like Dunbar, Brown and Harper the green light anytime they wanted to shoot but this year, we don't have  the shooters to allow guys like AMac and others to be firing up 25 footers the first time they touch the ball on the offensive end.    With a bunch of guys shooting from 25-30% on three point attempts, they are mostly just creating wasted trips down the floor.    Johnson hitting well over 40% and seems to have earned the right....otherwise ?  not so much. 

I think the big difference is the 3 pt line being moved back. It's only logical for players to have lower percentages now. And Anferee actually has the highest % of makes than anyone else. 

I do agree I'd like to see better decision making on when to shoot, but I think we have done that in most games. The Alabama game they got caught up in how fast Alabama wanted to play and guard, and Samir handled it terribly. JVon kept looking to penetrate (and Okoro verified it to Pearl) that hte middle was packing in, and we simply didn;t do enough high screens to at least give our guards open quick shots.

We also knew we were not going to be as good a shooting team. No one can match the shooters we had last year. Okoro is not comfortable with his outside shot, and it seems the only good pure outside shooter is on the bench (JJ). 

We need to find better ways to get the ball to Wiley. I can remember many times in the Alabama game he posted up open but our guards were getting distracted and when they would get around their D, Wiley no longer was open. And their were times we forced it in because of it, and Alabama was too quick for that.

[AU64 10,122]

1 hour ago, steeleagle said:

And Anferee actually has the highest % of makes than anyone else. 

Check the stats....Johnson only one shooting a decent percent and AMc is less than 30% in SEC...plus he is a rebounder and on the 70% that he misses,  we generally lose the opportunity for an offensive rebound and same for DP.       I think the line move is more psychological than physical if you think back of all the shots that Harper and Brown took from well behind the line. 

So we knew coming into the season we likely would have shooting problems....and now we see that we do....and yet our big guys are firing up "one and done" shots from beyond the arc leaving no one to rebound. 

Wiley plays about 20 minutes per game and I expect that will be the norm this year....which means that half a game we need some different plan to score. 

 

[Eagle Eye 7 2,535]

When we learn to actually work the ball inside and make shots by folks besides Wiley, then that will open up more uncontested 3s like we saw last year. But if you shoot a 3 early and no ones underneath you better dang well make it. Last year with Harper, Brown and Chuma we could take it inside to the board. So defenses had to shade inside and when the passed ( good not like the crap we are seeing now ) around the horn we usually found someone open to shoot the three. Since we haven’t proved we are very good at driving inside, defenses are shading to the outside and when we pass around the horn usually everyone is covered. So they have to shoot a contested shot. Unless you do like Mac and just come straight down and pump a long range before you even get set. Those first three shots he took look like something you would do if there was only two or three seconds left on the clock not as a first choice. 

[JDUBB4AU 5,102]

Bama still sucks , but they out played Us. They deserve some credit . AU will get revenge 

[JDUBB4AU 5,102]

On 1/16/2020 at 8:44 PM, AURex said:

I think we all knew a loss would come. Hate on me if you want, but the reality is that Auburn is way over-rated at this point. Auburn still has not played a ranked team.

I'm REALLY disappointed that the first loss comes to Bama. I'm EVEN MORE disappointed that it was a blowout. Not even close.

I'll be looking for revenge when Bama comes to Auburn Arena!

In the meanwhile, Bruce really needs to figure out how to help the Tigers score points.

 

I agree . Top to bottom AU has a long way to go to be a contender . Also bama exposed us . It stinks 

[steeleagle 2,945]

2 hours ago, JDUBB4AU said:

I agree . Top to bottom AU has a long way to go to be a contender . Also bama exposed us . It stinks 

I never thought this team was a top 5 team. More of a 8-15 ranked team. But when everyone started losing, especially more than 1 game so far, they had no choice but to move us up even though we have not played anyone ranked yet.

Even with the very good team we had last year we still only finished 11-7 in the league. So I am hoping we at least get to that level, bc this team is not as good as last years(especially w/ the experienced bench we had last year).

[auburn4ever 1,266]

Losing to uat by 20  for our 1st loss at their place really sucks.