JwgreDeux

Longest home winning streak in the country, longest ranked AP streak in our program's history, where is the "this is a bad team" crowd? Enjoying this group and their fight to improve. CBP is coaching his butt off.

for those who may be wondering, there are 3 players (with regular minutes) on this team with lower +/- rating that KD. Zep at .6, Yo at -2.4, and Chance at -5.2. The highest is Cardwell at 11.1.

On the topic of KD, overall I think he helps the team, but his production is down and he has not shown the growth you would like to see in a third year player with significant minutes. HIs points, shooting % and 3pt % have dropped each year since his freshman year at UGA. So has his +/- rating. While I don't value the +/- stat the way some do, it is useful in a big picture analysis of a player's impact. His +/- was a 4.8 at UGA, 4.1 his first year with AU and this season it is currently a 1.7. Basically meaning per 100 possessions he contributes 1.7 points to the team. That is a positive number so he is helping the team, statistically speaking. It is interesting to note that is offensive +/- is -1.0 and his defensive +/- is 2.7. So he is hurting us on offense at the moment. Personally, I do like KD's energy. I'm frustrated by his lack of growth, but this group needs his spark. I hope CBP can continue to work on him and harness it more effectively. I believe we have seen KD struggle because he is trying to do this, and hopefully he takes a turn for the better as he finds it. He's earned the chance to get it worked out.

To win on the road by 20 when Broome only gives us 4pts is a good sign this team is finding itself. Our best basketball is still ahead of us. Flan is playing better. I had my doubts that he would find his game, but it looks as if he is. Wen is learning this season, finding ways to get his shot off in the paint better than last season and even earlier this season. That is important because it leads to buckets either on the make or offensive rebounding. You can tell CBP is coaching his tail off. Changing sets, changing defenses by using more zone, and continuing to mix rotations. I don't think we have it dialed in yet, but we are getting closer.

Turnovers and fouls are killing us. Hopefully we can clean those up a bit, doesnt take much to cut down on 2 turnovers and 4 fouls per game.

At this point we are virtually a lock for the tournament so I think a win or two there with a good draw would be our ceiling. So I'll say sweet sixteen as a ceiling.

Current teams we have played that are projected tourney teams: Wins: Northwestern, Colgate, Arkansas (Bradley and St. Louis are projected as potential auto-qualifiers even though they are not currently leading their conferences) (Mississippi State is on the bubble right now) Losses: Memphis (USC on the bubble right now) So we are somewhere between 3-1 and 6-2 vs current tourney teams. UGA is currently top 100 in the net putting our road loss to them as a quad 2 loss which is not a bad loss currently.

Lack of production from our freshman is surprising, and management of Westry has been a disappointment for sure.

For all those that are down on this team (we are literally watching one of the best periods in our program's history): https://www.al.com/auburnbasketball/2023/01/auburn-basketball-ties-school-record-with-30th-consecutive-week-ranked-in-ap-poll.html

Now six wins away from #2 spot.

This is simply not accurate. The only place we got whipped was on the free throw line where they took 15 more and made 11 more than we did. Otherwise the boxscore was pretty balanced: they won rebounding and turnovers narrowly, we won assists and steals narrowly. We have had a fouling issue in several of our close games and losses. That is an issue to keep an eye on moving forward. I don't understand the negative outlook on this team. We are in the top 16 in rankings, top 3 of the league currently and at or above expectations at this point in my opinion. Our league schedule gets tougher and if we want to compete for the league we have to play better, but there are no dark days ahead. My gosh do we remember what dark days are? They certainly are not what is currently happening. Flan is not our normal inbounds guy. JW and the 4 handles that, but due to foul trouble and CBP not trusting Yohan Flan was there. Not an excuse per se, just an observation, should have been better execution late.

Also, of note, we are currently pretty much a lock for the ncaa tourney at this point.

Looking forward at the schedule and the conference race, we are in a tough spot. Currently we are fourth in the league at 3-1, with UT, Bama and A&M all undefeated. Of those 4 teams, we have the toughest schedule the rest of the way, as we play all three of those teams twice, plus at UK. THat would project us to likely 3-4 or more league losses if we split those game and drop one more somewhere along the way for a league record of 13-6 or so. A&M plays us twice but only once against each Bama and UT plus at UK. If they split those games and drop one other, they will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-4. UT plays us twice, and bama and A&M once plus at UK. IF they split and lose one other, they also will be around 15-4. Bama has us twice and UT and A&M once each plus UK at home (they already won that game), so they have the easiest way to the end, likely 16-3 or so. Arky and MIzzou are the wild cards that may be able to disrupt some folks. Bama and us already have wins over them but we will See. Does UK get it together? Can UGA keep winning games? A lot of games left, but we have a tough road to the end. I never expected us to challenge for the regular season league title, but thought I'd take a look at what we have left.

It's just college basketball for you. Play better some nights than others. We played poorly vs UGA and they played well (L). Vs Arky we played well and they played a little down (W). That is how the season is going to go. I have not seen clear improvement from the team chemistry-wise, which is concerning. I thought the pieces would fit better this season, and we haven't found it yet. However, fit can happen suddenly, with small changes, so don't quit on this group.

We are essentially at the half-way point of the regular season. Our record of 12-3 is right about where it was expected to be. The Georgia loss being the only game we had no business losing. Overall the team is a little behind where I thought we would be. That is mostly due to the play/status of Westry. I still am holding out some hope that he gets reinserted to the lineup as a 2 and provides some needed scoring from that spot. Traore is more raw than what I projected based on the Israel games, but not surprising Williams is holding on to that spot. Donaldson is ahead of where I thought he would be so that is nice to see. Everyone else was a pretty known commodity and we are still trying to figure it out. I think the rotations we have seen are what they are, and CBP will stick with it until/unless Westry can get in the mix. We can win any game on our schedule when we play elite defense. We can lose any game on it when we don't. I don't expect any player to change who they are, but do hope CBP can continue working on each guy so we get the best they have more often than the bad versions. Overall at this point, I am pleased and don't expect things to just collapse. Stay patient as we will lose some more games, but hopefully we can find a way to work out some kinks and build towards a postseason run, as I do not expect us to keep pace for a regular season title.

Georgia has played one of the weakest schedules in the country. If we play our normal Defense we may hold them under 60.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you. I posted pre-season that we may need to go to him in an effort to find a shooter. I did see it. Our guards gamble sometimes for steal with shot blockers behind them, its our style of play. CBP loves Lior, did a lot for him on the junior national team he was on. IF CBP thought he would help us win, he would be playing more. Trust me, the guy who can beat everyone on the team at horse and in shooting drills is usually a guy sitting on the end of the bench during games. My comment wasn’t about his ability on any one trip down the floor, it was about the idea of him getting a block of minutes in the 10+ range.

Its his defense that keeps him on the bench. His lateral quickness is not enough to defend the perimeter consistently.

Glad to see/hear that CBP plans to play Chance at the 2/3 more going forward. We need production at the 2 more than anywhere else, and with Tre playing well at the 1 we need scoring/play making at the 2 in a bad way.

Your concerns are well take. The way we played Memphis did resemble some of the Miami symptoms. That being said, I think we are too down on last season's team. It was a disappointing loss in the second round of the tourney, but the team had a very good season overall. Also at work in that game if you will remember was we played terrible defense in the second half. We were tied at 33 or within one point at halftime and we game up nearly 50 points in the second half on top of a poor offensive showing. Miami really took advantage of Kessler's style of play, drawing him away from the hoop on defense and not allowing the lob to him on offense. Be patient with CBP as he works on finding the rotation with this current group. The growing pains aren't over yet.

I don't love KD but he was top 20 scoring in the SEC last season and 7th in steals, and Green was second in assists top 25 in points and top 50 in rebounding. Let's not act like these guys are trash. This system is not made to work like that, and these player would be worse trying to execute that type of system. Oh and we out rebounded USC by 13 boards. I actually think many of KD's struggles is him trying to make passes when he needs to shoot. I think our biggest issue is shot selection. I also would not have AF in a facilitator role as he continues to struggle with turnovers. I completely agree Tre and Chance each need significantly more minutes to work out the kinks. I think. that comes at the expense of Zep and KD, but we need to explore what they can do. I also agree about looking more high low. Williams and Broom both have shown they need more touches and Williams is perfect to work from the high post spot.

We basically didn't move in KenPom after this game. There's no reason to panic over a one possession loss on the road to USC. We were the better team. We lost the game because of 20+ turnovers. We rebounded better and defended better than the Memphis game, we shot a better percentage than USC and did pretty well at the line too. This isn't a bad team. No reason to abandon ship and build for next year. CBP knows he has to find a rotation, you've seen him actively trying to do so with the guards recently and I think he has shown he knows what he's doing. I mean we barely lost and Wen and KD both had 0 points. Don't panic.

You mean the stretch when Wen went out and Tre was in foul trouble? Yeah that was a bad stretch without either of our point guards on the floor. You can tell CBP trying to work through things with this group. KD was in his own head, Chance barley played, CBP toying with rotations trying to find the recipe.

From the benching of KD to the post game presser, you can tell CBP is not happy with the rotations and things will be different. We are a mess at the 2 right now. I think that is spot that is most holding this group back. Someone has to start scoring from the two to open up other stuff. Zep and Chance have given us almost nothing from that spot. Both have shown they can be better than what we have seen. KD is KD and that isn't going to change. What he did to get sat down nobody is saying. I will be watching him closely to see if any element of his game changes when he returns.

Yes. It means different things to different people and different things in different places. Some think it is what kids do at the student ACT or a local rec center. I would have said it is the type of play that goes on at outdoor courts where I grew up playing that involves a lot of iso one-on-one ball where rules are liberally enforced. There would be other say something different altogether. Additionally, they way it is used as an insult by some can be in poor taste.