Men vs Alabama Game Thread

[e808 3,028]

7 minutes ago, AU Is Gold said:

They played close to their best game against our defense. 

It sound like to lessen the blow of Auburn losing it’s easy to say Alabama played their best or close to their best. That’s wasn’t their best and played way better in their lose to Purdue.
IMO Auburn didn’t have to play their best to win either. Just needed to run the offense and control the tempo how they started the game

[AU Is Gold 410]

4 minutes ago, e808 said:

It sound like to lessen the blow of Auburn losing it’s easy to say Alabama played their best or close to their best. That’s wasn’t their best and played way better in their lose to Purdue.
IMO Auburn didn’t have to play their best to win either. Just needed to run the offense and control the tempo how they started the game

Nothing about it is lessening a blow. I'm all for giving a team respect after they beat us, but that was as close to their best as they will ever get against us. It was at home in a crazy environment and they pulled away by 14 in the first half to make it tough. They will get beat by 8+ guaranteed when they come to Auburn in an arena that isn't falling apart. You can go ahead and place your bets. 

[AUGrad16 34]

39 minutes ago, TuscaloosaTiger said:

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.

I was at the game with amazing row 7 seats BUT the section adjacent was the student section. It was probably 35% AU fans who were mostly in the upper deck nosebleeds. I will agree it's the loudest I've ever heard Coleman. I actually felt bad for K.D. last night. They were saying stuff to him I was ashamed my 60 year old mother next to me had to hear. I get it, part of the rivalry but college kids wishing death on another college kid is wild. Even 2 older UA women were shaking their heads at the UA students. UA players were throwing elbows and bumping into us every chance they got, I will say they were slick about it. I heard a lot of UA students saying to each other " we're definitely not winning in the jungle" while walking out. 

[cole256 17,084]

20 minutes ago, AU Is Gold said:

Nothing about it is lessening a blow. I'm all for giving a team respect after they beat us, but that was as close to their best as they will ever get against us. It was at home in a crazy environment and they pulled away by 14 in the first half to make it tough. They will get beat by 8+ guaranteed when they come to Auburn in an arena that isn't falling apart. You can go ahead and place your bets. 

Once again who played their best game? If this is the best the team has ever played then you would have at least 3 guys playing their best. 

Once again I know Mark didn't play his best and their second leading scorer didn't score one point....

But if you guys want to pretend that was as good as they can play run with it..... What do I know?

[NWALA Tiger 3,535]

Basketball season with playing so many games is ebb and flow. Bama had their backs against the wall. Oats challenged their toughness. Hostile environment.  It happens. They aren't as good as they were last year. But in hoops, when u play someone as well as where can make a big difference.  Basketball is a tournament sport. The in season games are good for seeding purposes.  It's all about the tourney... Without looking it up, can anyone tell me who won the 2 games against Bama when AU went to the final 4? Does it even matter?

Edited January 25 by NWALA Tiger

[AU Is Gold 410]

34 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Once again who played their best game? If this is the best the team has ever played then you would have at least 3 guys playing their best. 

Once again I know Mark didn't play his best and their second leading scorer didn't score one point....

But if you guys want to pretend that was as good as they can play run with it..... What do I know?

You don't seem to give our team the credit it deserves, especially on defense. An individual "playing their best" is subjective. Auburn isn't going to let multiple guys on the opposition go off on them. 

I think we gave Mark Sears too many opportunities. 

[1auburn1 1,120]

 

I don't understand this.   Aden will be great but was clearly overmatched physically in this game.   Tre should've gotten 8+ more minutes

Player	POS	MIN	FGM-A	3PM-A	FTM-A	+/-	OFF	DEF	TOT	A	PF	STL	TO	BLK	PTS
J. Williams		29:00	3-9	0-3	1-2	0	2	9	11	0	1	1	2	0	7
J. Broome		26:00	11-17	1-2	2-2	0	4	10	14	1	5	0	1	5	25
A. Holloway		22:00	0-7	0-5	2-3	0	1	1	2	3	0	0	1	0	2
D. Jones		21:00	3-8	1-5	2-2	0	1	1	2	1	1	3	2	0	9
C. Moore		10:00	1-1	1-1	0-0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	3
K. Johnson		22:00	3-7	0-4	2-2	0	0	2	2	2	4	0	2	1	8
C. Baker-Mazara		20:00	3-8	0-2	5-7	0	0	0	0	0	3	3	2	1	11
T. Donaldson		18:00	3-5	2-3	0-0	0	0	1	1	3	0	1	0	0	8

[cole256 17,084]

12 minutes ago, NWALA Tiger said:

Basketball season with playing so many games is ebb and flow. Bama had their backs against the wall. Oats challenged their toughness. Hostile environment.  It happens. They aren't as good as they were last year. But in hoops, when u play someone as well as where can make a big difference.  Basketball is a tournament sport. The in season games are good for seeding purposes.  It's all about the tourney... Without looking it up, can anyone tell me who won the 2 games against Bama when AU went to the final 4? Does it even matter?

I post a bunch or at least used to about how a loss can be helpful. Of course the most optimal way is go thru adversity and still win but everything is about getting hot when it's tourney time.

I'm just hoping none of our players are thinking that was good enough. If they think things went their way we'll win next time we will get the hell beat out of us

[cole256 17,084]

2 minutes ago, AU Is Gold said:

You don't seem to give our team the credit it deserves, especially on defense. An individual "playing their best" is subjective. Auburn isn't going to let multiple guys on the opposition go off on them. 

I think we gave Mark Sears too many opportunities. 

Lol. You should check my history a little more if you think that then. 

We didn't give him things we don't have the players that can match up with him one on one. So we need to double him and make somebody else beat us.

But I don't see what that convo has to do with you saying they played their best. The question you have to ask yourself when you say that is what did the guy do that he doesn't normally do? That's the question.

[AU Is Gold 410]

1 minute ago, cole256 said:

Lol. You should check my history a little more if you think that then. 

We didn't give him things we don't have the players that can match up with him one on one. So we need to double him and make somebody else beat us.

But I don't see what that convo has to do with you saying they played their best. The question you have to ask yourself when you say that is what did the guy do that he doesn't normally do? That's the question.

My point of all this is Alabama will not and can not play much better than they did last night against this Auburn team. Our defense and depth is going to prevent them from having that kind of game. 

[e808 3,028]

13 minutes ago, AU Is Gold said:

My point of all this is Alabama will not and can not play much better than they did last night against this Auburn team. Our defense and depth is going to prevent them from having that kind of game. 

Depth had no impact . Their rotation is conditioned to run and gun. Even with the rotation some of the Auburn guys were winded. The thing is look at who Alabama has played and look at who Auburn has played. I don’t see how some a predicting a 20 plus win at home. Alabama has been battled tested . I would be happy getting a win. Another posted has mentioned I believe it was @AURex who said something like we will find out how good this team is when the competition gets tougher. Anyways let’s get this Dub on Saturday.

[AU Is Gold 410]

3 minutes ago, e808 said:

Depth had no impact . Their rotation is conditioned to run and gun. Even with the rotation some of the Auburn guys were winded. The thing is look at who Alabama has played and look at who Auburn has played. I don’t see how some a predicting a 20 plus win at home. Alabama has been battled tested . I would be happy getting a win. Another posted has mentioned I believe it was @AURex who said something like we will find out how good this team is when the competition gets tougher. Anyways let’s get this Dub on Saturday.

The win is guaranteed in Neville. 

[cole256 17,084]

21 minutes ago, AU Is Gold said:

My point of all this is Alabama will not and can not play much better than they did last night against this Auburn team. Our defense and depth is going to prevent them from having that kind of game. 

Yes if we play better or have a different strategy or something, but we aren't just show up better than them. 

If we don't play thru JB and slow the game down we will lose. If we don't get a big lead on them, if we let the game be close at the end we will lose. But hopefully Pearl will see something and have a better strategy for next game

[Mikey 16,727]

7 minutes ago, AU Is Gold said:

The win is guaranteed in Neville. 

I don't think so. Last night's game was lost in the first half. Broome played well, the rest were all sub-par until after half time. The turnovers were horrible and out of character. Do that at home and we'll lose again.

[AU Is Gold 410]

9 minutes ago, Mikey said:

I don't think so. Last night's game was lost in the first half. Broome played well, the rest were all sub-par until after half time. The turnovers were horrible and out of character. Do that at home and we'll lose again.

Won't happen at home. If we can't beat Alabama on our home court then we need to move on to football. 

[autigeremt 6,688]

I’m on the side of an Auburn 15 point victory in Neville on 2/7 

[AU Is Gold 410]

Also, I would like to throw out that I think Alabama had 10 points right after Auburn blocks. The ball seemed to go right into their hands every time. Fluky as you'll ever see. 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,734]

3 hours ago, 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

Yeah the Cardwell/Broome thing wouldve been an atrocity against this team. Nelson moves like a guard - you’re asking one of our centers to keep up with him off the dribble. Then you’re giving Sears TWO giant bodies to hunt in isolation. They can’t help with rebounds much if they’re the ones being exploited. Not to mention, Jay Will also got 12 rebounds 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,734]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

Lol. You should check my history a little more if you think that then. 

We didn't give him things we don't have the players that can match up with him one on one. So we need to double him and make somebody else beat us.

But I don't see what that convo has to do with you saying they played their best. The question you have to ask yourself when you say that is what did the guy do that he doesn't normally do? That's the question.

Hard to do with the white dude looking like prime Aaron Gordon around the rim and Griffen hitting like 70% of his 3s, but I wish we started selling out with hedging on screens involving Sears a little bit earlier. It at least stringed out those possessions a lot more

I was telling people the same thing when evaluating our guard stable against theirs. Theirs was better coming in - they had more numbers and they had the best guard out of both rosters combined. I think people either underrated Griffen and Sears or overrated Aden (who I think will be a stud one day very soon). You just can’t have an exploitable set of guards against Bama, unless your bigs are just so much better than it exceeds that disadvantage (Purdue). 
 

I don’t even think zone was an option against this team with the way the ball was popping + their outside shooting, but that’s probably going to have to be our main weapon against other stellar guard stables. Denver is very very solid as a POA defender, but I don’t think we have someone else that good (once you factor in KD’s inherent tendencies to reach). Gonna be a lot more high end guard sets like this when you’re playing against a Kentucky or Tennessee, maybe even USC

Edited January 25 by Dual-Threat Rigby

[e808 3,028]

4 minutes ago, Dual-Threat Rigby said:

Yeah the Cardwell/Broome thing wouldve been an atrocity against this team. Nelson moves like a guard - you’re asking one of our centers to keep up with him off the dribble. Then you’re giving Sears TWO giant bodies to hunt in isolation. They can’t help with rebounds much if they’re the ones being exploited. Not to mention, Jay Will also got 12 rebounds 

The thinking is in small stretches like to close the game. J Will was nonexistent down the stretch on the boards.  Auburn got killed on the boards when he wasn’t around the goal. If that doesn’t get fixed the same thing will happen against UTK and KY. Unless Auburn gonna be hot on offense. 

[Dual-Threat Rigby 8,734]

Just now, e808 said:

The thinking is in small stretches like to close the game. J Will was nonexistent down the stretch on the boards.  Auburn got killed on the boards when he wasn’t around the goal. If that doesn’t get fixed the same thing will happen against UTK and KY. Unless Auburn gonna be hot on offense. 

Yeah but with how Bama works, your bigs aren’t always going to be around the rim. They got Grant who is often around the perimeter - that was Jaylin’s primary matchup. Whether it was him or Dylan, they would have to be drawn out from right by the rim if they’re actually respecting that guy on D.
Not to mention, we had to switch a ton both on and off the ball. Like those moments where Broome was on Sears, Cardwell was on him a few times, etc. I don’t know what Jaylin’s rebs looked like down the stretch, but it could’ve just because he was routinely on a guard.

 

I definitely get the thinking btw, and we had a few back breaking second chance buckets we gave up. But IMO, it would’ve just sacrificed more in trying to fix that problem 

[AUGoo 2,664]

We had plenty of opportunities with open shots to win this game.  Just couldn’t hit anything. (And free throws)
 

How do you teach poise? Clearly our guys were rattled. How many TOs on just basic passes did we have?

How do you teach calm in the storm?

Johni can get riled up in a heart beat. Looks like he learned. Need to put the rest of the team on the fast track to poise.

 

[cole256 17,084]

21 minutes ago, AUGoo said:

We had plenty of opportunities with open shots to win this game.  Just couldn’t hit anything. (And free throws)
 

How do you teach poise? Clearly our guys were rattled. How many TOs on just basic passes did we have?

How do you teach calm in the storm?

Johni can get riled up in a heart beat. Looks like he learned. Need to put the rest of the team on the fast track to poise.

 

You have a PG and you let him experience the situation and the next time he's in the situation he's better. Then once that PG is comfortable he can lead the team and make everybody else feel comfortable as well

[Viper 3,132]

20 hours ago, NWALA Tiger said:

Without looking it up, can anyone tell me who won the 2 games against Bama when AU went to the final 4?

We won both. The one at bammer, we came back from a large deficit to win.

 

[GTNupe11 2,036]

On 1/25/2024 at 2:09 PM, e808 said:

What do u mean the 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.

Thank you. I don't think that took rocket science to see but glad someone explained...