2/14/23 Auburn Articles

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Pearl deems Missouri a 'must-win' game for Auburn

Nathan King

5–6 minutes

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AUBURN, Alabama — Intensity is never lacking for Bruce Pearl. But he was extra fired up Monday ahead of what he deems his team's most important game of the season thus far.

Yes, Auburn just hosted its biggest rival, now-No. 1 Alabama, in a 77-69 loss on Saturday. It was yet another close loss for the Tigers in a Quadrant 1 opportunity. But Pearl's team continues to hang around in NCAA Tournament projections, considering the quality of opponents it's losing to. The Tigers' resume isn't dropping much, despite four losses in five games.

And although Missouri (19-6, 7-5 SEC) is one of the better teams in the SEC this season, the Valentine's Day matchup for Auburn (17-8, 7-5 SEC) is the first of three straight games where the competition level has dipped.

Pearl will be the first to say a loss would deal a major blow to Auburn's postseason aspirations.

"They're all big," Pearl said Monday, "but I think this is the biggest game of the year for us this year. ... This is a must-win for us."

Why is that? Pearl laid out a few reasons: Missouri is a composite 7-seed in bracketologies right now, per BracketMatrix.com. Auburn is an 8-seed. Missouri, Auburn and Kentucky are all tied for fourth in the league at 7-5, and depending on what plays out in the midweek games, Auburn could find itself at No. 3 in the SEC standings heading into the weekend. So could Arkansas, Florida and Vanderbilt, all of whom are 6-6. "

"There's a lot in the mix," Pearl said.

Most notably, it will be Auburn's first departure from a Quad 1 game since its last win, at home against Georgia at the start of the month. Auburn checked in at No. 35 in Monday's NET ratings, and Missouri is close behind at No. 45. It would be a Quad 1 win for the visiting Tigers, and a high Quad 2 victory for the home team.

A win is what Auburn is expected to do. A loss makes more some added stress down the stretch. Pearl is always transparent with his teams about their standings in league play and the March Madness picture, so he doesn't need to create any added motivation for the team's final six games.

"They know exactly where we are and who's who and what's at stake," Pearl said. "Honesty is the best policy. We communicate, and they understand everything about the position we're in and what we've done. Yesterday, Northwestern beating Purdue was a good thing. I told our guys that it was gonna be a great win. I didn't know it was gonna be as good of a win as it is. But I also reminded them that we held Northwestern to 42 points. That's still part of this year's resume. Obviously, they understand that."

Auburn takes things a game at a time, of course, but it's also a roster full of upperclassmen who understand the season is getting to crunch time.

"It most definitely helps us, because we have to always know what the goal is — what the end goal is — and that's to make it to the tournament," forward Chris Moore said Monday of Pearl's message. "So with him telling us where our seeding would be after certain results of games really helps us and really shows us the picture that we've got to paint."

The final third of Auburn's SEC schedule is organized rather simply: three games the Tigers should win, and three games they'll likely be underdogs in. Sweeping the next three — Missouri, at Vanderbilt and back home against Ole Miss — won't be easy, but it will secure 10 SEC wins, with a chance to steal one of the last three at Alabama, at Kentucky and Tennessee at home.

A 10-8 SEC record might be good enough to go dancing, but it could get dicey. An 11-7 clip would certainly punch the ticket. And it starts with a matchup Tuesday (6 p.m. CST, ESPN2) that Pearl hopes has some pressure behind it for his squad.

"Win this game, (we) have a chance to go to the tournament," Pearl said. "Don't win this game, we're in sixth place, seventh place and we have an upfield battle. That's just where we are. We worked so hard to put ourselves in a great position. We're still in a great position, and we've earned the position we're in by virtue of our record and the quality of some of our wins.

"But if we don't start winning, then the NCAA Tournament is not going to be available to us."

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Pearl predicts Missouri at Auburn will be 'fun game to watch'

Mark Murphy

4–5 minutes

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AUBURN, Alabama–Two teams currently heading in opposite directions in the SEC basketball standings will meet on Tuesday at Neville Arena as Auburn played host to Missouri on Valentine’s Day evening. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. CST with TV coverage on ESPN2 as Coach Bruce Pearl’s Tigers look to change how they are trending.

Missouri has won its previous two contests and five of its previous six. Dennis Gates, in his first year as head coach at Mizzou, has produced a team that is 19-6 overall and 7-5 in the Southeastern Conference.

Auburn has lost five of its previous six games and is 17-8 overall and 7-5 in the league. Coach Bruce Pearl’s team will be trying to end a three-game losing streak during its only regular season matchup this season vs. Missouri.

Pearl predicts it will be a fun game to watch. “They are not a great defensive team, but they lead the league in turning you over because they press you, they make you go faster. I will tell you it will be as exciting and as up-tempo a contest as we will play at home all year long.

“They play a very exciting brand of basketball. Their tempo is second only to Alabama. Even though they have a couple of bigs, they play what  amounts to like a five-guard type system.”

Pearl noted that Missouri is a very experienced team that features “almost all seniors.” Auburn’s coach said, “They have done a great job in the transfer portal. Coach (Gates) brought three of his former players over from Cleveland State.”

Pearl noted that another reason Mizzou is having a strong season is that Kobe Brown is having a strong season worthy of consideration for SEC Player of the Year honors.

Brown, a 6-7, 250 senior from Lee High School in Huntsville, leads Missouri with team-high averages of 16.5 points and 6.1 rebounds. He is making 46.9 percent of his field goals, is 35-76 on threes for 46.1 percent and is connecting on 72.2 percent of his free throws.

D’Moi Hodge, 6-4, 188 graduate transfer guard, made the move to Missouri along with his head coach, Dennis Gates who spent the previous three seasons in charge at Cleveland State. Hodge is the second-leading scorer at 14.1 points per game. He was the Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year last season.

DeAndre Gholston, a 6-5, 215 graduate transfer guard from Milwaukee, is averaging 10.5 points.

A key to success for Missouri has been its ball-handling. As a team the Tigers are turning the ball over 11.4 times per game and forcing 17.4 turnovers. Combine that with 48.2 percent shooting from the field, 36.6 percent from three-point range, and Missouri is out-performing preseason expectations.

Wendell Green (1) is the No. 1 scorer for Auburn at 14.3 points in all games and 16.4 in league plays. (Photo: Petre Thomas, USA TODAY Sports)

 Pearl is asking fans to be in Neville Arena on Tuesday night despite the lack of recent wins and despite it being Valentine’s Day. “I am calling out The Jungle,”?he said. “I am calling out our season ticket holders to use their tickets and give their tickets away to give us the best chance we possibly can. Why? Because Missouri is the No. 2 scoring team in the country. They just went to tennessee and beat Tennessee. They scored 86 at Tennessee, we scored 43. You do the math.

“This is a really, really good offensive team–a really talented team, a really hard to guard team,” Pearl added. “They are No. 1 in free throw percentage (in the SEC), they are No. 2 in getting to line and we foul people too much and send them to the line too much. They are No. 5 in three-point percentage.”

6COMMENTS

Auburn will be trying to bounce back from a 77-69 home loss on Saturday to league leader Alabama.

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247sports.com

 

Jason Caldwell's Monday morning quarterback column

Jason Caldwell

5–6 minutes

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Crunch time for Auburn hoops

The biggest game of the season for the Auburn basketball Tigers wasn’t on Saturday nor will it come against Kentucky, Alabama or Tennessee in the final three games of the regular season. Nope, the biggest game(s) of the year for Bruce Pearl’s team will come in the next nine days when Auburn faces Missouri at home, Vanderbilt on the road and Ole Miss at home. This three-game stretch will likely determine Auburn’s fate this season.

You definitely don’t concede any game with this team because of the way it can play defense, but the problem is that you’re also not going to be a threat to run away from anyone because of the problems on offense. 

That means first, and foremost, you’ve got to take care of business in the games you’re supposed to win. We have seen upsets galore across the league this season so nothing is guaranteed, but if you’re Auburn and you want to be an NCAA Tournament team, then you need to win these three games.

With six games remaining, the Tigers probably need to go 3-3 to wrap up a spot in the tournament. That would put Auburn at 21-10 overall and 10-8 in SEC play. With both the Big 10 and ACC soft in terms of bubble teams and with Kentucky falling off the bubble after losing at Georgia on Saturday, the league looks to have only three locks at the moment and even Tennessee has its share of issues right now at 8-4 in the league and road trips to Kentucky, Texas A&M and Auburn still left along with home games against Alabama and Arkansas. 

It’s going to be a wild ride down the stretch for Auburn and the rest of the league. If this team wants to keep this season going, now would be a good time to get hot because there aren’t many more chances left.

Play ball!

Auburn softball got off to a good start over the weekend in Florida and now it’s time for Butch Thompson and the baseball Tigers to take the field this weekend against Indiana as they open the season. It’s going to be a very interesting year in 2023 because I think this is one of the most talented rosters I have seen for an Auburn team in my last 20+ years of covering the Tigers, but that doesn’t always guarantee success. How quickly can the young, talented arms get ready for the Southeastern Conference? That’s going to be a huge part of things. I spoke to two former players who were at a recent practice and watched bullpens and they were blown away by what this team looks like physically.

That should show up at the plate early with Bobby Peirce, Cole Foster, Kason Howell, Nate LaRue, Justin Kirby, Ike Irish, Cooper McMurray and others all capable of hitting the ball out of the park. This team is going to have power at the plate, but consistency and timely hitting is always important.

In the end, the pitching is going to tell the ultimate story for this team. That starts with Joseph Gonzalez. They need him to be a true No. 1 starter for this team. The Tigers are also going to need a group of guys to step up on the back end of games and it may be done by committee. Junior college transfer Will Cannon, TCU/Notre Dame transfer Tommy Vail, Chase Isbell, John Armstrong, junior college transfer Tanner Bauman and redshirt freshman Trevor Horne are just some of the names that could play a big role for this team out of the bullpen.

Let’s go!

Fix it

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A few hours before Sunday's Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona kicked off, I saw a tweet where some reporter was talking about a new style of grass for the game and how they rolled the surface outside everyday for sunshine and then back in at night. That made the hair on the back of my neck stand up because I had heard that line before and actually written it. In Arizona a week before Auburn played Oregon in the BCS Championship Game, we were fed the same story about how innovative the stadium was and how the surface was going to be great. It was great, when I arrived at the stadium at 3 p.m. that day. However as the temperatures got colder and the moisture from the grass began to come to the surface, it became a hockey rink. It has been a continuous problem in that stadium and it was on display once again in the biggest game on the planet.

It's beyond time to tell the folks in Arizona to fix this issue. It continues to be a problem and it makes a mockery of big game after big game. It's beyond time for someone to tell them to fix it, or else.

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