Men vs Alabama Game Thread

[gr82b4au 5,568]

Alabama has a good chance to win it all this year. They can score inside and outside. Best group of freshmen in the sec. 
Sad to think the only freshman that played for us was trey. The other 2 did not play. 
Zep, CM, and the walkon bring bring nothing offensively, and AF had a really poor game offensively. 
As has been said multiple times since game 2 - we can’t score. 

[keesler 5,932]

8 minutes ago, Old fan 47 said:

Agree also. This team is not nearly as talented as they were made out to be. If we don’t get some true shooters, who can hit water falling out of a boat, nothing will change. Funny how AU BB comes back stronger than ever over the last few years, but damn, Bama does too.

Can’t expect every team to sit on their asses while Bruce and Auburn rise to the top.  This staff better get busy addressing areas of need or they’ll be sitting right in the same spot next year.  Loyalty to players is admirable, but not to the detriment of your programs success.  
 

Several SEC teams are cutthroat and working tirelessly through the portal and NIL.  Auburn better not get behind the eight ball on this or we’ll see more mediocre seasons like this one.

[AUcivE09 582]

I'm not a big basketball fan and this is the first game I have watched. It was pretty easy for a guy like me to tell this team just does not have talented shooters. The end of the game spoke volumes when we were something like 0-10 shooting. As much as we complain about the refs it feels like they kept us in this one.

[1716AU 732]

44 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Oh yeah. Look at a guy like Tyler Smith when Bruce was at Tennessee. The stuff he did with Smith last year....Miller seems to have a better handle than jabari had though. I imagine Bruce has a thousand ways to create mismatches and isolations for a guy with Miller's skill set

To be honest, I have real doubts about Bruce Pearl

[ShocksMyBrain 9,389]

3 minutes ago, 1716AU said:

To be honest, I have real doubts about Bruce Pearl

Well, better settle in because he’s here for a looong time. 

[keesler 5,932]

4 minutes ago, 1716AU said:

To be honest, I have real doubts about Bruce Pearl

Well, he’s got a lifetime contract and will be here a very long time.  He brings a dynamic personality and Auburn has built their athletics around his personality mainly because we’ve had back to back wet blankets coaching football.  
 

Auburn has invested a ton in BP, they better make sure he has any backing he needs via NIL to stock his roster and throw the $$ his way to dominate the portal.  GO BUY SOME SHOOTER BRUCE.

[AuburnNTexas 7,198]

Some people are down on Bruce because we have a slightly down year.  people need to realize a few things happened outside of Bruce's control some good and some bad. The advent of the G-league took away a few players who were high on Auburn. Then he gets Sharife Cooper a dynamic PG who first can't play right away and two opts for NBA when he needed to play at least 1 more year and Powell leaves after the concussion taking away a big shooting guard. Bruce had every expectation they would have been on the team last year. So he had to go to portal for Green and Zep and apparently to get them he had to promise not to bring in new guards. Bruce picked up Smith and Kessler. While Smith was highly thought of out of HS most thought he would need a couple years in college to get highly drafted but he blossomed early and gets drafted. Kessler didn't show that much at NC and many thought was a quality player but a project instead he blossomed so we lose our best two players to draft. He pulls in Traore, Westry, and Donaldson. Donaldosn was a project we all expected a lot from Westry but he got hurt and while we knews Traore was raw we all expected more from him. He also got Broome in the Portal and that was a good pickup.

Next years Broome is back, I am hoping with another year Traore will blossom, Bruce is really high on Westry and Donaldson has potential. We have what appears to be a really good PG coming in. Our scholarship limit because of person is over and we will lose Flan, Williams and Moore so we should be able to pick up help in the portal. I believe Zep is gone also but if not I would process him.  We need a big SG/SF type player who is a shooter, SF/PF type player from the portal and ideally a shooter to come off the bench for next year.  In 2024 we have 2 PG's and Center coming in and depending on who get in portal for next year we might need a couple more players at least one an impact Portal player.  We are not that far from being really good if we can do well in Portal for next years team.

Edited February 11, 2023 by AuburnNTexas

[Old fan 47 775]

50 minutes ago, keesler said:

Can’t expect every team to sit on their asses while Bruce and Auburn rise to the top.  This staff better get busy addressing areas of need or they’ll be sitting right in the same spot next year.  Loyalty to players is admirable, but not to the detriment of your programs success.  
 

Several SEC teams are cutthroat and working tirelessly through the portal and NIL.  Auburn better not get behind the eight ball on this or we’ll see more mediocre seasons like this one.

Exactly. We become relevant, but no school in the SEC is going to not attempt to improve their second biggest revenue draw. As I stated and you, BP and staff just can’t remain complacent. We are considered an upper tier team over the last few years, but that can change quickly. BP has to get at least one shooting guard and a power forward that can shoot as well. We will see. 

[CameronCrazy 1,105]

The season and this game are completely different story if Mark Sears and Rylan Griffen are playing for us instead of Alabama.

[fishepa 1,911]

7 minutes ago, CameronCrazy said:

The season and this game are completely different story if Mark Sears and Rylan Griffen are playing for us instead of Alabama.

Yeah but they’re not. 

[keesler 5,932]

10 minutes ago, CameronCrazy said:

The season and this game are completely different story if Mark Sears and Rylan Griffen are playing for us instead of Alabama.

But they aren’t playing for us.  Uat plays 4 freshmen regularly and they have shooters and depth coming off the bench.  
 

I trust AU to get to work processing some players and back filling with better talent.  It should be this staffs main focus.

Edited February 11, 2023 by keesler

[cole256 17,084]

I don't really understand why anybody wouldn't have expected a down year from us this year. 

We are better than I expected us to be. I think Bruce has done a good coaching this team. I just had a problem with some of his roster decisions

[NoALtiger 3,873]

14 minutes ago, cole256 said:

I don't really understand why anybody wouldn't have expected a down year from us this year. 

We are better than I expected us to be. I think Bruce has done a good coaching this team. I just had a problem with some of his roster decisions

Very well said. Unfortunately Bruce is the one that’s responsible for the roster makeup and I think that’s what’s got some folks a little ticked at him lol. Bruce is the man, he just missed a little on the roster is all. I know without a doubt he knows what’s up but there’s nothing he can do about it right now except coach them the best he can and get through the year. He does need to make some portal moves though or shame on him lol. 

Edited February 11, 2023 by NoALtiger

[1716AU 732]

12 minutes ago, cole256 said:

I don't really understand why anybody wouldn't have expected a down year from us this year. 

We are better than I expected us to be. I think Bruce has done a good coaching this team. I just had a problem with some of his roster decisions

That is what bothers me

We have just been through in in football now this

What is it about Auburn giving huge contracts and having results like this right after?

[keesler 5,932]

12 minutes ago, cole256 said:

I don't really understand why anybody wouldn't have expected a down year from us this year. 

We are better than I expected us to be. I think Bruce has done a good coaching this team. I just had a problem with some of his roster decisions

It may be more of an issue where players haven’t improved at a rate we’d hoped they would?  There are missing pieces that have to be addressed in the offseason.  I will say this team fights till the end and they don’t back down from any opponent, I’m happy to see that.

[zeroforwinger 445]

I don’t understand why we didn’t address shooting in the offseason as it was last year’s biggest weakness. Zep should’ve been encouraged to look elsewhere. Hopefully Bruce makes a big effort to bring in shooters next year. 
 

Anyone with doubts about Bruce is hilarious though. Definitely a Johnny come lately. 

[cole256 17,084]

18 minutes ago, NoALtiger said:

Very well said. Unfortunately Bruce is the one that’s responsible for the roster makeup and I think that’s what’s got some folks a little ticked at him lol. Bruce is the man, he just missed a little on the roster is all. I know without a doubt he knows what’s up but there’s nothing he can do about it right now except coach them the best he can and get through the year. He does need to make some portal moves though or shame on him lol. 

As usual we are on the same page. Must be the North Alabama connection!

[TigerPAC 985]

Opponent shoots 59% and we shoot 32% but yet, somehow, we had our chances but can’t close the game in the last 4 minutes 

[AuburnEagle79 2,170]

I'm glad we are at the point to where an average year is a down year. Wasn't that long ago that an average year would be as good as it gets.

[cole256 17,084]

19 minutes ago, 1716AU said:

That is what bothers me

We have just been through in in football now this

What is it about Auburn giving huge contracts and having results like this right after?

Yeah. Even with stuff like in football when we won the title, or when we went to the title game....it's like we are right there with stuff and all we need is one maybe two more high level seasons to establish ourselves and we trip up. 

I agree with you it's pretty damn frustrating at times. 

[cole256 17,084]

18 minutes ago, keesler said:

It may be more of an issue where players haven’t improved at a rate we’d hoped they would?  There are missing pieces that have to be addressed in the offseason.  I will say this team fights till the end and they don’t back down from any opponent, I’m happy to see that.

Yes we do. We fight. Even today I've posted quite a few times to hold Miller to what we did is pretty darn impressive. We just need a complete product offensively and defensively

[cole256 17,084]

Everybody knows the thing that frustrates me is Mark. Because when you think about it bammer is supposed to have that other guy playing. The PG. So they had him coming back AND they signed their freshman 5 star guy. But when Mark entered the portal they didn't do the we already have so and so, they added talent.

If they didn't have Mark right now they probably would be hurting. That's how vital adding talent is. It's just crazy we'd turn away people and on top of that it's when we saw we needed guys. They kept adding and they didn't even have the same type of letdown we did. 

We just don't ever need to get complacent. 

[tightendoverthemiddle 102]

2 hours ago, 1716AU said:

To be honest, I have real doubts about Bruce Pearl

Same here. I could not believe it when the lifetime contract was announced. You don't have to watch very long..

[Jgarrett7 957]

Smh, Bruce has done more with Auburn’s basketball program the last few years than 100 years prior. Some of you kill me. 

[e808 3,028]

Respectfully, there may be some issues that need to be addressed but doubting CBP isn’t one of them. It’s unfortunate that Traore and Westry haven’t been able to contribute in the manner that CBP probably had hoped. I believe they will still make the dance somehow and we already know help is ion the way. Just gotta finish the year. War Eagle