‘The toughest environment’: How Auburn basketball is preparing for Cameron Indoor Stadium

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AUBURN — The recent success of Auburn basketball has swelled Neville Arena into one of the better environments for hoops in the SEC.

But on Wednesday, the second-ranked Tigers will leave the confines of their home-court advantage to play in a place like no other: Duke’s 9,300-seat Cameron Indoor Stadium, which Bruce Pearl said will be “the toughest environment” Auburn will play in this season.

“We get an opportunity to go play one of the best teams in the country in one of the toughest environments,” Pearl said Monday. “If you talk about Auburn and Duke, both teams are really good this year, but one thing we have in common is that we both play in very intimidating places. Cameron Indoor Stadium is probably the most famous home-court advantage in college basketball, and Neville Arena certainly has become that.”

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Pearl said Auburn (7-0) will be practicing Monday with piped-in sound to prepare for an environment that’s all its own in Durham.

Only 13 other high-major Division I men’s basketball programs play in smaller arenas. Ironically enough Auburn’s Neville Arena is one of those, seating a couple hundred fewer than Cameron. But with its densely packed confines and an infamous student section donned the “Cameron Crazies,” Auburn will have a task on its hands all its own to beat the Blue Devils on their home court.

“That definitely will affect our play-calling,” Pearl said. “So the guys are going to have to be really sharp leaving the huddle, knowing what we like, knowing what the breakdowns are — being effective with our hand signals and things like that to be able to communicate to the team.”

No. 9 Duke is 5-2 to start the season, with losses to top-ranked Kansas and No. 4 Kentucky, both of which came down to the wire. But it’s 4-0 at Cameron. Its win total this season has already out-gained its losses at home a season ago.

The Blue Devils were 15-3 at Cameron Indoor during the 2023-24…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/toughest-environment-auburn-basketball-preparing-221304050.html

Author : The Montgomery Advertiser

Publish date : 2024-12-02 22:13:00

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