‘Teams aren’t going anywhere’: Bruce Pearl sees room for improvement for Auburn basketball

[ad_1]

AUBURN — In a conference full of titans, Auburn basketball proved earlier this week why it may be one of the SEC’s mightiest.

On Tuesday, when a top-ranked Tennessee squad went on the road and got squashed by No. 8 Florida, and sixth-ranked Kentucky traveled to Georgia and suffered the same fate, the second-ranked Tigers had the same circumstance. Back in the Lone Star State, far removed from its win over then-No. 5 Houston, Auburn got another Quad 1 victory in far-from-perfect fashion over the Texas Longhorns.

It didn’t matter that Arthur Kaluma shot his way to 34 points, or that the Longhorns had a 55-point second half. Auburn won, beating the Longhorns 87-82.

The good of it was that the Tigers staved off perhaps the most impressive comeback effort they’ve seen all season. But the bad of it was that they were in such a position in the first place, squandering a 21-point advantage that was eventually dwindled to one possession.

In a conference full of goliaths, if Auburn wants to maintain its status, it’ll need to improve — and Bruce Pearl sees plenty of room for it.

“It’s a 40-minute game,” Pearl said Thursday. “Teams aren’t going anywhere.”

In its Texas win, Auburn saw the Longhorns go from struggling against its defense in the first 20 minutes to thriving against it in the final 20. Where Texas shot 40.5% from the field and didn’t make one of its four 3-point attempts in the first half, it shot 51.6% from the field after halftime and was 5 of 10 from deep.

Defending in transition has been a point of emphasis for the Tigers, and it delivered in ironic fashion in the second half. Where the Longhorns scored nine transition points in the first half, Auburn out-scored them 9-0 in that regard in the final 20 minutes.

Following the win, Pearl said Auburn “did a great job” defending in transition, adding that Texas “didn’t get a ton of easy ones. They earned their points.”

Pearl summed up the areas for improvement Thursday: “I don’t think, in this case, we did…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/teams-arent-going-anywhere-bruce-100837243.html

Author : The Montgomery Advertiser

Publish date : 2025-01-10 10:08:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.