BTO’s Auburn Postgame Report

#1

bleedingTNorange

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#1
1. An ugly win beats a pretty loss any day of the week, although gauging by some reactions I do wonder if everyone feels that way. Regardless, winning is better than losing and we won…you can complain about scoring but at the same time not sure how you can holler Bring Back Pearl while complaining about Barnes offense and watching that slop offense Pearl throws out there! Needed a W and we got one, I’ll take it any way we can get it.

2. With that said, YES, the offense is in a funk and it’s not pretty…silver lining is defense is elite and so we can win a game like that, but with that said we gotta get the offense going. We had a number of good looks from 3, we also shot ~50% at the line, add in a few missed layups that should be gimmes and you’re talking about a game we should’ve easily scored 65-70. Now that’s not setting the world on fire but it’s looks much better than what we put out there…not sure if Vescovi is still hurting, if there’s a confidence issue, the Monstars stole our shooting touch or what, but we gotta figure it out. Yes there’s some things we could do different schematically, but with the system in place just hit shots at a decent clip and matched with our defense that’s gonna win a lot of games.

3. Shout out JJJ, didn’t have it shooting from deep but hit some mid range and grabbed 14 rebounds, 15pts and 14rbds to be exact. He’s a Swiss Army knife for us and does so many good things, really need him (and the rest of the team) to find the outside stroke, but even when it’s not falling JJJ still found a way to impact the game and will us to a W.

4. IDK what the solution/answer is with depth, pretty clear who your 5 are, but Key has really disappeared, Mashack and Awaka after not much last few games played some solid minutes tonight. Not sure what you do if you’re Rick. What I will say is I would like to see better substitution patterns, let’s not bring in Mashack and Key along with Uros at the same time, you’re really hamstringing that group offensively and not giving them much chance to succeed. I think all of these guys can serve a purpose and be beneficial, but put them in position to succeed.

5. Needed that win, and really need the next 2 as well, 2 very winnable games with 1 being a road trip…we currently sit 19-4(8-2), add in the upsets today and we are right back into the thick of 1 seed talk, at worst towards the top of the 2 seed line. Win these next 2 and we sit at 21-4(10-2) heading into a massive game against Alabama, obviously running the table is slim but in theory if we beat Bama and they drop 1 that’s all it takes, a H2H determines seeding and we would have that, obviously lots of hypotheticals there but just seems like people are acting as if Bama is 3/4 games ahead of us and that’s not the case. Regardless though bigger picture is NCAAT, and these next 2 are big for that, win those and our floor continues to raise itself, our first ever 1 seed like I said is still very much on the table.



GBO!!!
 
#2
#2
After consecutive games against Florida and Texas with our defensive finishes, I suspect coach is looking to keep the team more rested after experimenting with a shorter bench.
 
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#5
#5
Nkamhoua was absolutely brutal today. Had all kinds of great looks and either shot air balls or short-armed the shot. Could’ve been a similar score line to last week if he plays well.

Overall, it was an awful game that ended up in a win. I don’t care about bracket or seed, this team won’t make a deep tourney run because of their inability to be consistent offensively.
 
#7
#7
I thought it was interesting, after Uros seemed to nearly lose his mind banging around his defensive assignment, and then picked up the technical foul barking at him, Barnes offered up a low five to Plav as he went to the bench. I was expecting the opposite. Uros must have been told to raise hell when he went in. He did.
 
#8
#8
You take the win for sure, but if you can legitimately have thoughts that this team will be in the talks of a 1 seed by the end of the season with the way we are playing right now, you need your head checked. Unless we get significantly better on offense there are at least 3 or 4 more losses coming, and maybe more. No way this team beats Bama, Uk in Rupp, AU on the road with another performance like today. A&M and Arky won't be easy games.

Been saying it the last couple of weeks. We're fixing to find out how good this team is because the schedule is fixing to get rough. I surely hope they can turn it around.
 
#9
#9
After consecutive games against Florida and Texas with our defensive finishes, I suspect coach is looking to keep the team more rested after experimenting with a shorter bench.
 
#11
#11
The outside game is up and down but the inside game is non-existent. It's obvious Barnes is playing thru O to create some inside presence early but that is not productive. The offensive rotation is ending too many times with a BIG holding the ball center court behind the 3-point line and that ends the play. That's not what you want at the end of a play. I think they need to get Phillips in that same spot and finish the play with him driving to the hole. He seems to be the only player with the ability to score or get fouled on a drive. They need a drought breaker.
 
#12
#12
I’l certainly take the W, I just don’t know how they can get out of this offensive funk. They have good looks and Coach Barnes can’t shoot it for them, so I don’t know the answer to their problems. I really thought Julian was going to be our guy, but he has disappeared. Olivier once again can’t find consistency... Oh well, GBO
 
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#13
#13
You'd think after his performance against Texas that ON would be teeming with confidence--and maybe he was. If so, it's had a reverse mojo
effect on him as his shooting since that game has been terrible. Let's hope his Texas game wasn't just a fluke....
 
#14
#14
After consecutive games against Florida and Texas with our defensive finishes, I suspect coach is looking to keep the team more rested after experimenting with a shorter bench.

We need fresh legs heading into March. Wear out opposing teams with what one of our former coaches referred to as “40 minutes of he!!.” Relentless defense can and should spark our offense but that approach seems to have had two major hiccups these last two games. I have sent a telegram to Coach Barnes suggesting he let the horses run, let the dogs out, turn the boys loose and have fun scoring points again. You don’t recruit 4-5 star elite HS players and then put shackles on them. Every single player on scholarship knows how to put a basketball into the net. Turn them loose, spread around the minutes, rotate 9-10, and let them have fun again.

Something obviously needs to crystallize soon. Vandy can surely beat the team we saw against FL and AU.
 
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#15
#15
Have no idea what the issue is with this offense. Good opposing defenses can take Vescovi out. Nkamhoua shots were all good high % shots but he wasn’t close. Maybe feeling the pressure of being “the guy” is messing with his head. ZZ was pressing and making bad decisions. James’ midrange saved us but his 3 pt FG % is now down to 31% and teams will adjust to that and take his drive away. Philips took 3 shots and all 3 were good looks. Made one and missed one in lane. His drive down the lane was a good shot too but was big time block by Broome. Otherwise he is not part of the offense. We can’t expect to continue to shoot so poorly and win a lot of these games over this last stretch of 8 games.

Last week Barnes after big Texas win said we need to keep improving. Well we are regressing dramatically. Up to him to figure it out. I haven’t listened to his post game conference but read that he said he wasn’t concerned about our offense. For a coach who likes to “keep it real” and be honest with the team, he is kidding himself if he actually said that. Our depth which should be a strength has turned into a detriment because we are so poor in half court offense. Really painful to watch. We need to get quicker buckets in transition but he refuses to push tempo despite saying early on and even prior to the season that was intention. Frankly I’m not sure he has an answer and I like Barnes a lot.
 
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#16
#16
I thought it was interesting, after Uros seemed to nearly lose his mind banging around his defensive assignment, and then picked up the technical foul barking at him, Barnes offered up a low five to Plav as he went to the bench. I was expecting the opposite. Uros must have been told to raise hell when he went in. He did.
Say what you want about the antics, but they set the tone for the ass whooping we dolled out in the paint. Could have been Barnes’ plan all along. We killed the on the glass and Broome was a non factor after the first 2 minutes of the 1h. He also looked exhausted before the first half was even over. Our bigs were awful on offense, but had their way in every other facet.
 
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#17
#17
1. An ugly win beats a pretty loss any day of the week, although gauging by some reactions I do wonder if everyone feels that way. Regardless, winning is better than losing and we won…you can complain about scoring but at the same time not sure how you can holler Bring Back Pearl while complaining about Barnes offense and watching that slop offense Pearl throws out there! Needed a W and we got one, I’ll take it any way we can get it.

2. With that said, YES, the offense is in a funk and it’s not pretty…silver lining is defense is elite and so we can win a game like that, but with that said we gotta get the offense going. We had a number of good looks from 3, we also shot ~50% at the line, add in a few missed layups that should be gimmes and you’re talking about a game we should’ve easily scored 65-70. Now that’s not setting the world on fire but it’s looks much better than what we put out there…not sure if Vescovi is still hurting, if there’s a confidence issue, the Monstars stole our shooting touch or what, but we gotta figure it out. Yes there’s some things we could do different schematically, but with the system in place just hit shots at a decent clip and matched with our defense that’s gonna win a lot of games.

3. Shout out JJJ, didn’t have it shooting from deep but hit some mid range and grabbed 14 rebounds, 15pts and 14rbds to be exact. He’s a Swiss Army knife for us and does so many good things, really need him (and the rest of the team) to find the outside stroke, but even when it’s not falling JJJ still found a way to impact the game and will us to a W.

4. IDK what the solution/answer is with depth, pretty clear who your 5 are, but Key has really disappeared, Mashack and Awaka after not much last few games played some solid minutes tonight. Not sure what you do if you’re Rick. What I will say is I would like to see better substitution patterns, let’s not bring in Mashack and Key along with Uros at the same time, you’re really hamstringing that group offensively and not giving them much chance to succeed. I think all of these guys can serve a purpose and be beneficial, but put them in position to succeed.

5. Needed that win, and really need the next 2 as well, 2 very winnable games with 1 being a road trip…we currently sit 19-4(8-2), add in the upsets today and we are right back into the thick of 1 seed talk, at worst towards the top of the 2 seed line. Win these next 2 and we sit at 21-4(10-2) heading into a massive game against Alabama, obviously running the table is slim but in theory if we beat Bama and they drop 1 that’s all it takes, a H2H determines seeding and we would have that, obviously lots of hypotheticals there but just seems like people are acting as if Bama is 3/4 games ahead of us and that’s not the case. Regardless though bigger picture is NCAAT, and these next 2 are big for that, win those and our floor continues to raise itself, our first ever 1 seed like I said is still very much on the table.



GBO!!!

This team needs to find its offense or there are several more loses coming. Especially the guards need to get out of their slump.
 
#18
#18
You take the win for sure, but if you can legitimately have thoughts that this team will be in the talks of a 1 seed by the end of the season with the way we are playing right now, you need your head checked. Unless we get significantly better on offense there are at least 3 or 4 more losses coming, and maybe more. No way this team beats Bama, Uk in Rupp, AU on the road with another performance like today. A&M and Arky won't be easy games.

Been saying it the last couple of weeks. We're fixing to find out how good this team is because the schedule is fixing to get rough. I surely hope they can turn it around.
I think going 2-3 in the above 5 games is likely.
 
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#19
#19
1. An ugly win beats a pretty loss any day of the week, although gauging by some reactions I do wonder if everyone feels that way. Regardless, winning is better than losing and we won…you can complain about scoring but at the same time not sure how you can holler Bring Back Pearl while complaining about Barnes offense and watching that slop offense Pearl throws out there! Needed a W and we got one, I’ll take it any way we can get it.

2. With that said, YES, the offense is in a funk and it’s not pretty…silver lining is defense is elite and so we can win a game like that, but with that said we gotta get the offense going. We had a number of good looks from 3, we also shot ~50% at the line, add in a few missed layups that should be gimmes and you’re talking about a game we should’ve easily scored 65-70. Now that’s not setting the world on fire but it’s looks much better than what we put out there…not sure if Vescovi is still hurting, if there’s a confidence issue, the Monstars stole our shooting touch or what, but we gotta figure it out. Yes there’s some things we could do different schematically, but with the system in place just hit shots at a decent clip and matched with our defense that’s gonna win a lot of games.

3. Shout out JJJ, didn’t have it shooting from deep but hit some mid range and grabbed 14 rebounds, 15pts and 14rbds to be exact. He’s a Swiss Army knife for us and does so many good things, really need him (and the rest of the team) to find the outside stroke, but even when it’s not falling JJJ still found a way to impact the game and will us to a W.

4. IDK what the solution/answer is with depth, pretty clear who your 5 are, but Key has really disappeared, Mashack and Awaka after not much last few games played some solid minutes tonight. Not sure what you do if you’re Rick. What I will say is I would like to see better substitution patterns, let’s not bring in Mashack and Key along with Uros at the same time, you’re really hamstringing that group offensively and not giving them much chance to succeed. I think all of these guys can serve a purpose and be beneficial, but put them in position to succeed.

5. Needed that win, and really need the next 2 as well, 2 very winnable games with 1 being a road trip…we currently sit 19-4(8-2), add in the upsets today and we are right back into the thick of 1 seed talk, at worst towards the top of the 2 seed line. Win these next 2 and we sit at 21-4(10-2) heading into a massive game against Alabama, obviously running the table is slim but in theory if we beat Bama and they drop 1 that’s all it takes, a H2H determines seeding and we would have that, obviously lots of hypotheticals there but just seems like people are acting as if Bama is 3/4 games ahead of us and that’s not the case. Regardless though bigger picture is NCAAT, and these next 2 are big for that, win those and our floor continues to raise itself, our first ever 1 seed like I said is still very much on the table.



GBO!!!
Since when does H2H determine seeding? The committee missed that memo last year when we went 3-1 vs. AU and UK and wound up on the 3 line behind both of them.
 
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#20
#20
Since when does H2H determine seeding? The committee missed that memo last year when we went 3-1 vs. AU and UK and wound up on the 3 line behind both of them.

Pretty sure he means H2H matters for the conference tournament. Not the ncaa tournament
 
#21
#21
Defense is amazing. Not having every player ice cold (JJJ) with that D equals a win. With that defense, if two players were productive on offense TN would he really hard for anybody to beat.

Santi’s shoulder is an issue again.
Michigan exposed how to shut down Santi last year. Designate one player to him 100% of the time, face to face, never let his feet get set. Every team has done that this year. He has had only scoring surges since that game , no real consistency. (This opinion coming from a couch potato who rarely breaks a sweat, lol.)
 
#22
#22
Pretty sure he means H2H matters for the conference tournament. Not the ncaa tournament
Gotcha. Yes, if we beat Bama and they drop another we’d be the 1 seed. I’m not sure I see them losing more than 2 though and us holding onto only 2 losses.
 
#23
#23
Gotcha. Yes, if we beat Bama and they drop another we’d be the 1 seed. I’m not sure I see them losing more than 2 though and us holding onto only 2 losses.

Same. Think we drop two more. Law of averages says Bama will probably drop one, maybe two more but not enough for the title race to be a photo finish so to speak.
 
#25
#25
I feel like the phrase "If we just hit our open shots at a normal rate and dont miss bunnies we score 15 more" is becoming a staple of every BTO post game report. And im not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying it seems to me that they are going to either hit 65% of their shots, or they're going to miss a TON of shots they shouldn't. So I dont expect to be able to consistently avoid those latter games, which is why I think S16 is the probable ceiling and my expectation that I'd be satisfied

I agree strongly with number 4. I have been befuddled with some of the lineups we've thrown out there in recent games

All that being said, thrilled to beat Bruce and Auburn. Wished Mizzou had won today so we could play another ranked team next Saturday. As I think TGO said elsewhere, Memorial Gym is a terrible place to head while in a shooting slump. Need to lock in for Wednesday.
 
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