Men vs Alabama Game Thread

[arktiger1975 553]

14 minutes ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

That's the one you gotta win imo. Miss St almost beat Bama too, I think it was down to the last shot iirc. That win gets you up to 1-3 in Q1 games, and A&M is 9 spots out from being another Q1 win. So you're almost 2-3 in those type games. Not a terrible spot to be in. 

Arkansas and USC being flops this year has really hurt us in that regard. Two very highly ranked teams in the preseason that have been total busts.

[AURex 2,036]

The road is tough in the SEC. We will get Bama at Neville in a couple of weeks.

 

[GTNupe11 2,037]

1 hour ago, e808 said:

Just disappointed CBP didn’t put Card in to help Broome on the boards. Broome did decent on Sears a few times and there was no one to get the rebound. Some adjustments need to be Broome gonna be hard pressed by himself versus Tennessee and Kentucky. They have some trees

Agreed! I said early on in the 2nd half that Bruce might as well put Cardwell in for Jaylin since he was laying an egg. The extra help on the boards would have hopefully given us some more possessions.

[e808 3,028]

8 minutes ago, GTNupe11 said:

Agreed! I said early on in the 2nd half that Bruce might as well put Cardwell in for Jaylin since he was laying an egg. The extra help on the boards would have hopefully given us some more possessions.

Agreed

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,763]

14 minutes ago, arktiger1975 said:

Arkansas and USC being flops this year has really hurt us in that regard. Two very highly ranked teams in the preseason that have been total busts.

Basically what lil Pearl said in his interview earlier. Indiana and App St were good placements on the schedule though. We actually played another currently fringe tournament somewhere in there, although I'm blanking on them at this moment. 

[AUBwins 10,091]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

We should have played them like teams played us the last couple of years.... Doubled Sears quick make him give up the ball and then make them have to score and be Smart without him. I don't know we didn't double him more

I think Griffen starting off scorching hot from three drew the focus later in the game.  KD was quick to get on him when he touched the ball.  

But honestly because nobody stopped the ball and Sears went coast to coast several times. 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,763]

2 minutes ago, AUBwins said:

I think Griffen starting off scorching hot from three drew the focus later in the game.  KD was quick to get on him when he touched the ball.  

But honestly because nobody stopped the ball and Sears went coast to coast several times. 

I remember they tried it once early and it led to an easy walk-in dunk for Bama, but coming up on those screens and hedging definitely seemed to help late in the game. But kinda like you said, would've been pretty hard to do that with how the ball was popping and finding these quicker trigger guys like Sears.

Not to mention, it would've still been pretty inconsequential to the deficit with how carelessly we turned the ball over in that first. The defensive scout was definitely BAD, but they got blitzed by Griffen being extra fire power for the bench, so I don't know what that did to their prep. 

[aucanucktiger 1,798]

Free wheeling Pearlball: mesmerizing when it works and sloppy/careless when it doesn't. Love his approach to the college game though. 

[OfficiatingExpert 126]

Chris Moore’s regression is criminal, I hope we aren’t spending much on his NIL deal. Lior Berman is unplayable. Jaylin Williams was sitting on the bench with five minutes to go. Why? We have the wrong PG in the starting lineup. The shooting guards aren’t much to look at either. I hope we make a Sweet 16 but I feel it’s a round of 32 loss again. 

[JDUBB4AU 5,131]

9 hours ago, OfficiatingExpert said:

Berman got cooked for 5 fat points in about 40 seconds at one point and it made all the difference 

He also had a world class flop lol and threw the ball straight up 

[Swamp Eagle 5,146]

10 hours ago, CCTAU said:

Yeah. Those last three minutes when JB was supposed to take over, he never went down low. Every AU player was on the perimeter. I would like to see where that one was in the playbook.

I just commented a couple of days ago how this offense was different than past BP offenses in that they ran set plays very well and weren't just a "throw it around at the perimeter and chuck it" offense.

Oh, well. Bad habits die slowly.

[PotPot 166]

10 hours ago, fishepa said:

 

Has anybody reviewed the incident with KD from earlier in the game? He seemed pretty upset over a foul that I thought was no big deal. Just figured KD was overreacting like KD sometimes does. Maybe there was more to it 

[gravejd 3,271]

Glad the team fought back in the second half. We started off the game well but the constant stoppages seemed to get us out of our flow. Bama played one of their best games and we played one of our worst. While overall play improved in second half shooting did not. I like our chances when they come to AU and play. 

[Swamp Eagle 5,146]

1 hour ago, PotPot said:

Has anybody reviewed the incident with KD from earlier in the game? He seemed pretty upset over a foul that I thought was no big deal. Just figured KD was overreacting like KD sometimes does. Maybe there was more to it 

We definitely have some drama queens on the roster.

[cole256 17,084]

I don't know why people keep saying they played their best game. Who on their team did? Mark is their best player and he certainly didn't. I guess maybe#12 did. 

Estrada didn't even score did he? He's their second best scorer.... We need to play Donaldson more. 

We still need that lead guard that we've been needing the past 4/5 years. We have to be able to make good decisions in the clutch or we won't ever meet our potential. 

[WillMunny 1,384]

Another big missed opportunity, just like the Baylor game.  We just don't shoot well consistently.  But we sure do chuck up a lot of off-balance 3s.

We have a great low post scorer like we haven't had in a long time, which is my favorite part of the game, and he sure did his part once again last night with little help from the perimeter guys.  Holloway's success seems to come when he can naturally out-quick his defender; not so successful when he doesn't have a natural advantage, like last night.

And Pearl should have recruited Sears, like he admitted in an interview earlier in the week.  Didn't Sears actually prefer Auburn?

[Mikey 16,757]

37 minutes ago, WillMunny said:

And Pearl should have recruited Sears, like he admitted in an interview earlier in the week.  Didn't Sears actually prefer Auburn?

The Mark Sears you see this year is not the same player as the Mark Sears who didn't get a single P5 offer out of high school. To his credit he has improved immensely but if Pearl missed the boat, some 120 others did as well.

[e808 3,028]

2 hours ago, cole256 said:

I don't know why people keep saying they played their best game. Who on their team did? Mark is their best player and he certainly didn't. I guess maybe#12 did. 

Estrada didn't even score did he? He's their second best scorer.... We need to play Donaldson more. 

We still need that lead guard that we've been needing the past 4/5 years. We have to be able to make good decisions in the clutch or we won't ever meet our potential. 

I was going to say that Bama didn’t play a great game as well. They just executed better than Auburn did down the stretch IMO. I just think CBP could have made some tweaks that would have allowed Auburn to win the game. Not sure if Broome and Card practice much together but think them playing together down the stretch would have helped secure some of those missed rebounds 

[Tiger 8,830]

we have to stop trying to propose Cardwell and Broome play together. Those skillsets CANNOT play together in a post 2005 basketball world.

 

You could boil everything down to the Lior minutes being the reason we lost. We could have done everything exactly the same, go down by the big margin, make the comeback, etc -- but if you just take Lior out of the rotation that probably makes the difference.

We don't have an inordinate amount of room for error against the upper half of the SEC, and trotting Lior out there to look silly and kill our chances to win dries up all of our margin for error in these games that will make the difference at the top of the conference.

 

that's not absolving C-Mo. But at least he can tread water.

Denver Jones looked like he was not ready for big time Power 5 ball last night. CBM looked like he was a little rattled with Bama's physicality. And missed a FT at the end. Jaylin Williams looked like an underclassmen for the first half.

 

FEED BROOME. IT WAS BBQ CHICKEN ALL NIGHT HE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN AT LEAST 8 MORE SHOT ATTEMPTS + TRIPS TO THE LINE YES I AM YELLING. There was no reason for him not to have an iconic 40 and 15 night. He needed more minutes and touches last night for sure

Edited January 25 by Tiger

[Cardin Drake 1,857]

Umm, hitting 20% of your 3's vs 37% will do it every time.

[cole256 17,084]

2 hours ago, Mikey said:

The Mark Sears you see this year is not the same player as the Mark Sears who didn't get a single P5 offer out of high school. To his credit he has improved immensely but if Pearl missed the boat, some 120 others did as well.

He was that guy. It was easy to see if somebody actually looked. He out performed people ever since he was in middle school.

But of course he improved just like everybody else did. It's ok to say we missed because we did

[cole256 17,084]

2 hours ago, WillMunny said:

Another big missed opportunity, just like the Baylor game.  We just don't shoot well consistently.  But we sure do chuck up a lot of off-balance 3s.

We have a great low post scorer like we haven't had in a long time, which is my favorite part of the game, and he sure did his part once again last night with little help from the perimeter guys.  Holloway's success seems to come when he can naturally out-quick his defender; not so successful when he doesn't have a natural advantage, like last night.

And Pearl should have recruited Sears, like he admitted in an interview earlier in the week.  Didn't Sears actually prefer Auburn?

Yes we could have had Sears out of highschool. He would have been here with jabari, it would have been his sophomore year. We would have went far with him, stuff go right might have had a championship.

 

Sears has family that played for Auburn. Two of his uncles. And another uncle played for Tennessee. His Dad is a big Auburn fan. 

Edited January 25 by cole256

[e808 3,028]

On 1/25/2024 at 9:24 AM, Tiger said:

we have to stop trying to propose Cardwell and Broome play together. Those skillsets CANNOT play together in a post 2005 basketball world.

 

You could boil everything down to the Lior minutes being the reason we lost. We could have done everything exactly the same, go down by the big margin, make the comeback, etc -- but if you just take Lior out of the rotation that probably makes the difference.

We don't have an inordinate amount of room for error against the upper half of the SEC, and trotting Lior out there to look silly and kill our chances to win dries up all of our margin for error in these games that will make the difference at the top of the conference.

 

that's not absolving C-Mo. But at least he can tread water.

Denver Jones looked like he was not ready for big time Power 5 ball last night. CBM looked like he was a little rattled with Bama's physicality. And missed a FT at the end. Jaylin Williams looked like an underclassmen for the first half.

 

FEED BROOME. IT WAS BBQ CHICKEN ALL NIGHT HE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN AT LEAST 8 MORE SHOT ATTEMPTS + TRIPS TO THE LINE YES I AM YELLING. There was no reason for him not to have an iconic 40 and 15 night. He needed more minutes and touches last night for sure

What do u mean they can’t Card and Broome can’t play together. U telling me they can’t play together to close out a game for two or minutes when u need bigs  for rebounding. Second chance opportunities really hurt Auburn down the stretch.

Broome was adequate on Sears but when he helped Nelson just strolled down the lane and cleaned up everything. 
Lior getting cooked was the least of the problems . Better management of the first half and Auburn probably wins the game.

Edited January 26 by e808

[TuscaloosaTiger 285]

Putting aside all the what ifs from the game last night, it was an exciting and entertaining game. I spoke with a 71 year old UA friend who has gone to almost all the BB games at Coleman and he said last night was the loudest crowd he could remember.  Watching the game on TV, the AU contingent was vocal. Can someone estimate the size of the AU fanbase at the game?  My friend was highly complimentary of the AU team and does not believe UA will win at AU. I'm confident he will be proven correct.

[AU Is Gold 410]

4 hours ago, cole256 said:

I don't know why people keep saying they played their best game. Who on their team did? Mark is their best player and he certainly didn't. I guess maybe#12 did. 

Estrada didn't even score did he? He's their second best scorer.... We need to play Donaldson more. 

We still need that lead guard that we've been needing the past 4/5 years. We have to be able to make good decisions in the clutch or we won't ever meet our potential. 

They played close to their best game against our defense.