Men's Basketball so far

[AURex 2,000]

Yes, I know that Auburn has won games. I also know how A&M and (gasp, crappy) LSU came back to make it scary. Yes, I know Auburn is moving up in the polls.

But let's face it, Auburn has not yet faced any decent teams. Baylor (loss), A&M (win at home). I'm not a negga nellie. I'm just trying to be kinda objective.

We haven't played the better teams in the conference .......  Kentucky, Tennessee, Bama, Miss State, Ole Miss. Even UGA is playing better.

As the old saying goes, on any given night ....

The way Auburn has been slacking off in the second half, playing with no intensity, no rhythm, no focus down the stretch .... combined with CBP refusal to call time outs and make adjustments when other teams make runs .......

Rankings right now make me nervous. Auburn really hasn't proved anything yet.

Waiting and hoping!

WDE!

 

 

[OfficiatingExpert 126]

We won a conference game going away. I watched every game today. South Carolina was in overtime to scrape a win away from Mizzou. Vanderbilt kept making runs on Ole Miss before Ole Miss held on. UGA was actually thrashing Tennessee for a minute. Alabama escaped Starkville because the MSU missed their free throws. It’s going to be really hard to win conference games, we should enjoy them all. I still think we’re probably a 12-6 conference team. 

[OfficiatingExpert 126]

In basketball, if you win most of your home games and over half your away games, then you’re a really really good team. 

[CameronCrazy 1,062]

Auburn is going to be a really good team this year! But I agree with your assessment. Bruce Pearl HAS to call timeout. I thought his point about not calling timeout because he didn’t want to allow their best players to rest was a terrible take. Coach K was the absolute best at calling timeout to kill a run by the other team. We were up by 28 points! Who cares if they rest. The whole point is not allowing them to get momentum and get back in the game. 

What I saw tonight was like watching Gus Malzahn call a basketball game. You never take your foot off the gas pedal. Especially not with 11+ minutes left in the ballgame. We tried to run clock in the 2nd half and it backfired. We have to stay aggressive and push tempo until the last couple of minutes when we put the walk-ons in. We should’ve scored over a 100 in that game and blew them out even worse.

Great game and I’m glad we finally put them away late. War Eagle!

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,673]

By KenPom's metrics, Auburn's SoS would be at about 90th, for anyone wondering. 

Edited January 14 by Dual-Threat Rigby

[bigbird 60,538]

1 hour ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

By KenPom's metrics, Auburn's SoS would be at about 90th, for anyone wondering. 

Which makes our #4 Ken Pom ranking even more impressive. 

[e808 3,028]

I would say Auburn needs to only worry what’s in front of them. Auburn has been winning games by double digits and still has plenty to work on. All they can do is take it one game at a time. Every team has flaws and this team can be really special  if they continue to improve 

[gravejd 3,270]

We're a team that wins with effort for the most part. And that effort slipped when we got up 28 in the second half. It happens with college kids and not much you can do about it. Bruce lets his guys play and sometimes its a beautiful thing and sometimes not so much. I see where he was coming from with not calling the TO but not sure i agree with that decision. Couple minutes of them catching a breath isn't going to make or break them IMO. But continuing to play with an unfocused team will break you. 

But they recovered on their own and stretched the lead back out for a comfortable 15pt win so in the end it all worked out. Love teaching moments while winning 😀

[arktiger1975 518]

On 1/13/2024 at 10:16 PM, AURex said:

Yes, I know that Auburn has won games. I also know how A&M and (gasp, crappy) LSU came back to make it scary. Yes, I know Auburn is moving up in the polls.

But let's face it, Auburn has not yet faced any decent teams. Baylor (loss), A&M (win at home). I'm not a negga nellie. I'm just trying to be kinda objective.

We haven't played the better teams in the conference .......  Kentucky, Tennessee, Bama, Miss State, Ole Miss. Even UGA is playing better.

As the old saying goes, on any given night ....

The way Auburn has been slacking off in the second half, playing with no intensity, no rhythm, no focus down the stretch .... combined with CBP refusal to call time outs and make adjustments when other teams make runs .......

Rankings right now make me nervous. Auburn really hasn't proved anything yet.

Waiting and hoping!

WDE!

 

 

Baylor not decent? A & M beat Kentucky Saturday. And you say Ole Miss is "one of the better teams in the conference", their schedule has been an absolute joke. 

[arktiger1975 518]

On 1/13/2024 at 11:42 PM, OfficiatingExpert said:

We won a conference game going away. I watched every game today. South Carolina was in overtime to scrape a win away from Mizzou. Vanderbilt kept making runs on Ole Miss before Ole Miss held on. UGA was actually thrashing Tennessee for a minute. Alabama escaped Starkville because the MSU missed their free throws. It’s going to be really hard to win conference games, we should enjoy them all. I still think we’re probably a 12-6 conference team. 

I'm hoping for 13-5 or better. Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, and bama clearly appear to be the 4 best teams in the conference at this point. We play bama twice, Kentucky at home, and at UT. If we can split those 4 games (with at least 1 win vs UAT), I think we have a great chance of winning the regular season title 

[toddc 13,194]

SIAP 

CBP said he didn’t call time out during lswhos run  because he didn’t want to let them rest and gather up a plan of attack. He could see that they were getting gassed and knew our depth could wear them down. I think it was a master stroke by Pearl and we saw the results in the final minutes. 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,673]

2 hours ago, arktiger1975 said:

I'm hoping for 13-5 or better. Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, and bama clearly appear to be the 4 best teams in the conference at this point. We play bama twice, Kentucky at home, and at UT. If we can split those 4 games (with at least 1 win vs UAT), I think we have a great chance of winning the regular season title 

That Bama game at home sets the tone so so much. Can’t wait for that one 

[BizEagle 79]

24 minutes ago, toddc said:

SIAP 

CBP said he didn’t call time out during lswhos run  because he didn’t want to let them rest and gather up a plan of attack. He could see that they were getting gassed and knew our depth could wear them down. I think it was a master stroke by Pearl and we saw the results in the final minutes. 

Yeah, I watched the replay last night.  The LSU 1st team players were totally gassed.   Their big man, Baker, couldn't run the floor, then he badly missed his free throws, a real sign of fatigue.  Baker was spent, sweat pouring down, huffing & puffing, looked like he was gonna stroke out.  I read LSU's Tiger Rant message board and their fans complaining about Pearl running up the score at the end of the game vs their worn out players, to win by 15.   I was actually afraid of LSU because they beat A&M so badly on rebounding.  Pearl has a way of pulling the right levers at the right times.  We usually play best when we are running our high pace packages and not so good when burning off clock. 

On our side, the guys were running the floor but getting a bit sloppy.  CBM was cutting up and being a little casual but he was still running the floor and going for rebounds.  Denver Jones played really good defense. 

2 things stood out from our bigs; Broome ran the floor, beating everyone down the floor several times.  What big 6'10 player can sprint down the floor on a break like he does?  He does get pushed around some because he doesn't have any bulk.  Cardwell was a shot blocking & rebounding machine.  He hit most of his free throws and LSU, big man, Baker, was not strong enough to push Cardwell around.   Cardwell won that war.   Another new thing from Cardwell, is that he seems to have learned to get the ball to a shooter after a rebound. That was a weakness in the past, he would try to dribble, move to the basket and lose the ball 1/2 the time.  A player that big should not dribble and only go to the basket when he is close enough that he doesn't need to dribble.  Dylan plays better every time out.  Never thought he would develop into what he is now.  From the opposition's perspective Cardwell is a scary monster

 

[OfficiatingExpert 126]

2 hours ago, arktiger1975 said:

I'm hoping for 13-5 or better. Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee, and bama clearly appear to be the 4 best teams in the conference at this point. We play bama twice, Kentucky at home, and at UT. If we can split those 4 games (with at least 1 win vs UAT), I think we have a great chance of winning the regular season title 

The last team to win it with a 13-5 record was us in 2019 and it was a split title. And the time before we had a 13-5 champ it was another split title. We need to be 15-3 or better to hang banners I think, and I think we still have some deficiencies. I think the slow starts and sloppy play is going to cost us an annoying game. We have to sweep Ole Miss and Vandy, and it’s really hard to sweep teams. That’s an opportunity for a huge loss. I really want to see us get a good seed this year and have some postseason success. I’m not worried about one game or another. I’m worried about March and what this team does with the big lights and more viewers. If we can clean sweep through the trash on the schedule we’ll win the league but if we keep starting slow and getting sloppy before salting it away…someone is going to catch us. I want to see this team come out hot, do what they can do, stay hot, and finish. If they do that then I’ll say they can win it all. 

[BizEagle 79]

Scary to me, more than sloppy play at times are the shooting droughts.  We seem to go into unexplainable ice cold gaps.  It was a long drought at App State, although the officiating was horrific, didn't allow us to play any defense at all, couldn't get within 3 inches of an opponent without getting called for a foul.  Anyway, it looked like we got discouraged during that game.  Like we were in a shooting funk that we could not shake off.   App State was really effective at staying in front of Holloway, so he could not get off any 3's. They took advantage of his size and his long range shooting style, which is out in front of his body (vs. CBM, KD & JWill who shoot from the top/ over the head)  That is an improvement we have made in the past 3-4 weeks.   Holloway, CBM and JWill are getting open for 3's.  

[WillMunny 1,378]

Still too early to know how good we can be, IMHO.  I wasn't impressed before Christmas, but we seem to be improving.  We'll be good, maybe very good.  We'll know a lot more at the end of January.