2/24/23 Auburn Articles

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Vanderbilt vs. Auburn - Women's College Basketball Game Preview - February 26, 2023 | ESPN

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~3 minutes

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The Vanderbilt Commodores (12-17, 3-12 SEC) try to stop a seven-game road losing streak in a matchup with the Auburn Tigers (14-13, 4-11 SEC) on Sunday, February 26, 2023 at Auburn Arena. The matchup is at 4:00 PM ET.

Auburn fell to Georgia 70-59 in the team's last action on Thursday in spite of a team-high 20 points out of Aicha Coulibaly.

Vanderbilt was taken down by LSU 82-63 in the team's last outing on Thursday. Ciaja Harbison's team-high 21 points were not enough in the loss.

Watch live games this season for 25+ women’s college basketball conferences on ESPN+ and check out Division 1 Top 25 rankings here.

Auburn Team Stats

Auburn's 67.1 points per game this season is 3.5 fewer than the 70.6 Vanderbilt gives up per contest. The Tigers have gone 11-2 this season when they put up more than 71 points.

The Tigers make 67.6 percent of their free throws as a team, the 11th-best mark in the SEC. Coulibaly hits 3.6 free throws per game to lead Auburn while knocking down 66 percent of her attempts at the line.

Vanderbilt Team Stats

The Commodores score 66.7 per game, 0.4 more than Auburn gives up per contest. When Vanderbilt reaches the 66-point mark, it is 11-5 on the year.

This season, the Commodores have knocked down 6.7 shots per game from beyond the arc while limiting their opponents to six triples. Vanderbilt is 6-8 when it hits at least seven shots from downtown this season.

Auburn Players to Watch

Coulibaly has been productive for Auburn, leading the team in scoring (16.5 points per game), rebounding (6.4 rebounds per game) and assisting (2.5 assists per game). Honesty Scott-Grayson adds 13.1 points and two steals for the Tigers, and Kharyssa Richardson averages 7.1 points per game.

Scott-Grayson has a 39 percent shooting percentage from deep and paces the squad in made threes per game, hitting 1.5 treys per contest.

Player stats reflect 27 of 27 games this season.

Vanderbilt Players to Watch

Harbison leads Vanderbilt in points, scoring 19.2 a contest, and assists with 4.4 per game. Marnelle Garraud adds 14.1 points and 1.7 steals for the Commodores, while Washington averages 10.7 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game.

Garraud has a 39 percent shooting percentage from deep and paces the squad in made threes per game, making 2.8 three-pointers per contest.

Player stats reflect 28 of 28 games this season.

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'Just don't let them down:' Family comes first for Auburn's Wendell Green Jr.

Nathan King

8–10 minutes

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In the early stages of this season, Wendell Green Sr. was privy to a conversation between his son and a former teammate, Devan Cambridge, who opted to transfer following the Tigers’ 2021-22 SEC championship campaign and landed at Arizona State, where he’s playing with his brother.

The two were catching up on what things are like at Auburn, and how Cambridge is settling in the Pac-12. The athletic wing had high goals for himself this season, but there was one area of his game he knew wasn’t going to be as prolific as it was with the Tigers.

“‘Hey, man, thanks for throwing me all those lobs,’” Green Sr. heard Cambridge joke on the phone. “‘I mean, maybe I get a few here or there. But they don’t throw ‘em up there like you did.’”

Not many do. Wendell Green Jr.’s passing prowess and offensive orchestration, as Auburn’s now-veteran point guard, has been one of the major keys during his time with the program thus far. And it will continue to be this season, as the Tigers look to lock down an NCAA Tournament berth, faced with a daunting three-game stretch to close this season.

But as locked in as Green Jr. gets, especially during a crucial ending to the regular season, he tries not to forget his blessings.

“Now that I’m in this position, I just try to soak it in day by day," Green Jr. said in an sitdown with Auburn Undercover. “It’s crazy, but it’s something I’ve worked for my whole life.”

***

It’s easy for the junior point guard to reflect and be grateful, because he remembers quite vividly the feeling of uneasiness and doubt when he wasn’t sure if he made the right decision to transfer from Eastern Kentucky.

The Detroit native had a big freshman campaign in the Ohio Valley Conference — at 15.8 points per game and 5.0 assists — but after he entered his name in the portal April 1 of 2021, his phone was more silent than he expected.

“My first couple weeks, I didn’t really get any big schools,” Green Jr. said. “Then it was a tough decision, too, because I didn’t get to visit Auburn during COVID.”

By the end of the transfer process, though, Green Jr.’s father, Wendell Green Sr., told Auburn Undercover that around 35-40 Division-I schools had shown major interest in his son. Green Jr.’s favorites were Auburn, Indiana and Marquette.

“It was all about fit,” Green Sr. said. “It was a lot of Zoom meetings, but it got to the point where Auburn just made a lot of sense.”

For the better part of the past decade, if Green Jr. is on the court playing, you could find Green Sr. in the stands. Usually rocking his son’s NIL merch, it’s not difficult to pinpoint Green Jr.’s contingent at games.

“You only have this experience one time, so we have to be there to support him,” Green Sr. said.

(Courtesy: Wendell Green Sr.)

After every road game, Green Jr. climbs the stands to find his supporters, which usually includes some of his extended family, as well. He’s had a small pocket of the arena cheering him on in SEC country, along with other stops across the map.

“My dad has come to almost every game since he stopped coaching me in high school,” Green Jr. said. “It doesn’t matter where it is — USC, Washington, he always shows up. My mom works a lot behind the scenes. The support I get from those two, and my sister, my extended family, it’s amazing.”

Whenever Green Jr. gets down after a bad game, or needs a bit of extra juice to get motivated on a given day, it’s his family and their unwavering support that he always circles back to in his mind.

(Courtesy: Wendell Green Sr.)

“Me being here is bigger than myself,” Green Jr. said. “One day I might wake up and not want to shoot as much that day or not want to work out as hard. But it’s not about me. It’s about everyone’s expectations of me and me needing to exceed that and represent my family.

“I always say to myself, ‘Just don’t let them down.’ That’s the No. 1 thing.”

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Some of the passes that end up on Auburn’s highlight reels are just old tricks for Green Jr.

“His vision was always there,” Green Sr. said. “He was throwing lobs when he was 8, 9, 10 years old.”

As flashy as they appear, Green Jr.’s passing style is mostly out of necessity, he said.

Whether it’s a no-look or a wrap-around, most of the time, Green Jr. said with a laugh, it’s because he has to account for the fact that he knows he won’t always be able to easily see his targets on the court. He’s listed at a generous 5-foot-11.

“I’ve always been able to make those passes — they end up being highlight passes, but it’s not intentional,” Green Jr. said. “I’m a smaller guy, so if I see someone jumping in the air, I can’t get over them so I have to throw a baseball pass. It’s just about feel for the game. I feel like my patience in the paint has gotten better as the season has gone on.”

Sitting at No. 4 in the SEC with 4.3 assists per game, Green Jr. said it isn’t as simple as tossing a lob up high for his teammates, and putting a pass ahead of them in transition.

That’s why mistakes happen early in the season, and he attributed it to Auburn’s respectable turnover rate (10.7 per game in SEC competition) as the season has progressed.

“Over time it’s just about figuring out how guys like the ball and where they want it,” Green Jr. said. “Johni (Broome) is very different from Walker (Kessler). Walker you could just throw it as high as you can, but Johni isn’t 7-1. That’s just chemistry. It looks like you can build it over the summer but it takes real games and real time for it to happen.”

Green Jr. sometimes had an unstoppable connection with Kessler in their high ball-screen action, and his rapport with Broome has become highly productive, too. Another transplant from the Ohio Valley Conference — where Green Jr. was edged by Broome at Murray State for freshman of the year in the league in 2020-21 — Broome gives Auburn a consistent interior presence to complement Green Jr.’s play in the backcourt.

The junior center remains the only player in the SEC who’s top 5 in the conference in field-goal percentage (52.8), rebounds (8.9) and blocks (2.5).

As Auburn has faced one of the toughest schedules in college basketball, sometimes a good game from both Green Jr. and Broome still isn’t enough for a victory. But the Tigers rarely have much of a chance at all if they’re now playing well.

“If we turn it over or it’s a bad play, we try to never get frustrated at each other,” Green Jr. said. “We just talk it through real quick, right there on the court. That’s just our maturity level. We try to talk about it during games, after games, before games and just try to make sure we’re always on the same page.”

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That mindset permeates to the rest of the team, who have kept their heads high and been able to impressively wipe the slate clean during a string of losses against their elite competition — six defeats in their last night games, to be exact, with three of their toughest matchups of the entire year still approaching.

They know Green Jr. isn’t going to blink because of a bad game, or even a rough stretch during a game. That was evident Wednesday night against Ole Miss, when the point guard bounced back from a 2-of-18 shooting stretch over his previous two games and was the reason the Tigers avoided a disastrous loss, with 23 points, including 14 points and 8-of-8 shooting at the foul line over the last eight minutes of the game.

(Zach Bland / Auburn Athletics)

“Wen's a baller,” senior wing Allen Flanigan said Thursday. “You're going to miss shots, you're going to make shots. The best players in the world, they have games where they struggle and they shoot it worse. They come back the next night and they shoot it again. So him just trusting his stroke and trusting who he is as a player, just coming back out here and going at it again.”

Auburn’s players repeated this week that they need another win before the regular season is up, with games at Kentucky this Saturday, at Alabama next Wednesday, and against Tennessee at home the following weekend. Green Jr. has to play well for them to get it.

1COMMENTS

He and Auburn are more than okay with that. That’s what he envisioned when he took that leap of faith in the transfer portal.

“I think Wendell is okay with as he goes, we go,” Bruce Pearl said this week. “That's a great compliment. I trust him. I have confidence in him.”

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247sports.com

 

'I'm glad they're tired of it': Auburn finally closes out a tight game

Nathan King

4–5 minutes

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AUBURN, Alabama — Bruce Pearl sat in his chair, the first of 20 in the Auburn media room, on the second floor of Neville Arena. He let out a sigh, looked around at reporters, raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

“Well, needed that,” he declared plainly.

In more ways than one, Auburn sure did.

Not only did the Tigers keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive by avoiding a disastrous loss and fending off Ole Miss 78-74 on Wednesday night, but they finally proved to themselves they could close out a close game after several consecutive defeats in tight games. Granted, it took a matchup against a team tied for last place in the SEC, but Auburn notched its first single-digit win in 11 games — since a 69-63 home win over Mississippi State on Jan. 14.

After Ole Miss grabbed as large as a 4-point lead with 6:21 remaining, the Tigers — led by Wendell Green Jr. and Johni Broome — locked in and followed Pearl’s formula for victory: get stops, and get to the free-throw line. The Rebels shot just 2-for-10 from the floor the rest of the game, and Auburn, which made 22-of-24 free throws, went to the line four times in the final 80 seconds of the game.

Green Jr. had 14 points over the final six minutes of the game, including 6-of-6 free throws in the final 30 seconds.

“I mean, if you're sick of losing that much, you're going to try to do whatever it takes to win,” Green Jr. said. “That was my job in that moment. We just lost the last game. I'm personally sick of losing.”

Broome, who absolutely packed the stat sheet with 19 points (8-of-13 shooting), eight rebounds, three assists, six blocks and a steal, was a complete stalwart inside after Ole Miss made its run to take the lead. Over the final nine minutes of action, Broome had five blocks, five rebounds and three baskets.

"I'm glad they're tired of it but you have to do something about it," Pearl said.

In its previous two wins — blowouts by 33 points over Missouri and 19 points over Georgia — Auburn hadn’t needed to make plays down the stretch and hold off the opposition; it simply kept its foot on the gas with the advantage of its home crowd. But the Tigers had also led well into the second half in their last three losses: at Texas A&M, Alabama at home and at Vanderbilt.

Auburn didn’t find a way to extend those leads, and it ultimately crumbled because, as Pearl has harped on so many times, it didn’t string together defensive stops or get to the foul line enough.

In the last five minutes of those three losses, Auburn shot an average of 2.0 free throws and allowed the opposition to score 14.3 points. Against Ole Miss, those numbers were eight and 12, respectively.

“It just shows that we're learning,” Green Jr. said. “We ended up getting to the free-throw line a lot. That was the main thing coach told us — at the end of games, we've gotta stop fouling and get to the free-throw line more. Automatic two points. I think we improved on that. Hopefully we can keep improving on it down the road.”

Auburn moved down three spots to No. 33 in the NET ratings after the narrow win in a Quadrant 3 game, but the Tigers are still an impressive 17-2 in non-Quad 1 games this season — which is a fact Pearl and Auburn will tout as they look to pick up a key quality win over their last three games and guarantee a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

“It's hard to beat all the teams you're supposed to beat,” Pearl said. “And this team has come pretty close to that. Now, let's see if we can somehow play better down the stretch and beat some of the best teams on our schedule."

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Auburn basketball vs. Kentucky: Our scouting report, score prediction

Richard Silva, Montgomery Advertiser

4–5 minutes

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AUBURN — The last time the Tigers went into Rupp Arena and defeated Kentucky, Ronald Reagan was the president of the United States, coach Bruce Pearl was an assistant at Iowa and not a single player on Auburn basketball's roster was alive.

But, hey, why not this year?

The Tigers go on the road to take on the Wildcats on Saturday (3 p.m. CT, CBS). After starting the season 10-6, Kentucky (19-9, 10-5 SEC) has picked up some key wins, including season sweeps of Florida and Tennessee. Coach John Calipari has led his team to three straight victories, with the most recent being an eight-point road win over the Gators on Wednesday.

Kentucky is ranked No. 32 in the country by KenPom with an adjusted offensive efficiency mark of 117.2, good for 14th-best in the nation. Adjusted offensive efficiency is a stat that estimates how many points a team would score against an average Division I defense per 100 possessions.

Here's a scouting report for Auburn's (19-9, 9-6) game Saturday, and our score prediction.

JOHN COHEN:Exclusive John Cohen Q&A: Auburn AD discusses Hugh Freeze, Butch Thompson, facilities upgrades

BEATING OLE MISS:Ole Miss challenges Auburn basketball, but Tigers hang on late to avoid upset loss

Oscar Tshiebwe

Any discussion about the Wildcats must start with senior forward Oscar Tshiebwe, who is the reigning National Player of the Year.

The 6-foot-9, 260-pound Tshiebwe is averaging 15.8 points and 13 rebounds per game on 54.5% shooting from the field this year. He leads the SEC in total rebounds (325), offensive rebounds (131) and his five win shares are good for second in the conference, behind only Alabama's Brandon Miller.

Auburn got abused on the offensive glass against Ole Miss on Wednesday; the Rebels won that battle, 17-7, and cashed in 16 second-chance points. That won't cut it against Tshiebwe, and Pearl knows it: "(Ole Miss) is strong, but Kentucky is bigger, stronger and more athletic. ... If we rebound like we did tonight, we’ll get beat by 40," he said Wednesday.

The backcourt

Kentucky has two of the SEC's best playmakers in Shavir Wheeler and Cason Wallace. Wallace, a freshman, is a starter and averages 4.1 assists per game. The Wildcats are paced in assists, however, by Wheeler's 5.6. But the senior hasn't appeared in a game since Feb. 4.

Wheeler is expected to return "sometime in the near future," according to the Courier Journal. CJ Fredrick, a 6-foot-3 guard who's averaging 7.3 points per game but hasn't played since Feb. 7, is also expected to rejoin the fold at some point.

 

Feb 22, 2023; Gainesville, Florida, USA; Kentucky Wildcats forward Oscar Tshiebwe (34) dunks the ball during the first half against the Florida Gators at Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center. Mandatory Credit: Matt Pendleton-USA TODAY Sports

 

Good 3-point percentage, not many makes

The Wildcats have five players with at least 40 attempts from 3-point range shooting above 33%. Two of those players − Wheeler (36.6%) and Frederick (33.3%) − have missed time. The other shooters include Antonio Reeves (41.6%), Chris Livingston (38.1%) and Wallace (35.4%).

Despite the percentages, Kentucky ranks middle of the pack in total made triples, as nearly 70% of its field-goal attempts have come from inside the 3-point arc. Eight SEC teams have made more threes than the Wildcats, despite them leading the conference in 3-point percentage.

Kentucky 72, Auburn 69: The Tigers are coming off a key victory over Ole Miss, a win that signified Auburn's ability to finish contests effectively. But Kentucky's home-court advantage will be too much for the Tigers to overcome. Johni Broome and Tshiebwe battle it out, but it's the latter's team that prevails.

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on Twitter @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn basketball vs. Kentucky: Our scouting report, score prediction

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Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers

‘Enjoy every moment’: How Allen Flanigan got his bounce back

By Greg Ostendorf

2/24/2023 9:00:00 AM

AUBURN, Ala. – When Allen Flanigan gets a head of steam, it’s best to get out of the way.

On Wednesday night against Ole Miss, Flanigan was dribbling the ball up the court in transition. He hesitated briefly at the 3-point line and then put his head down and took off toward the basket where he elevated and threw down one of his patented left-handed slams.

It was violent. It was angry. It was classic Al.

“I just thought he was going to lay the ball up,” teammate Zep Jasper said. “I saw him go outside and just rear back with his left hand, and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ I didn’t know he was going to do that. Somebody must have made him mad. He only does that when somebody makes him mad.”

“That feeling when I do get a chance to throw one down, it’s like a roller coaster for me,” Flanigan said. “It boosts my adrenaline. Any time I have the chance to showcase my athleticism, it’s tremendous."

Flanigan does not take that feeling for granted. He went nearly an entire calendar year without experiencing it. In August 2022, prior to his junior season at Auburn, he injured his Achilles in a freak accident and was forced to have surgery. Immediately, doubt started to creep in. Will my leg ever be the same? Will I be able to explode off the floor and do the things I’m used to doing?

Not knowing the answers to those questions, Flanigan put his head down and went to work. He started rehab. He was in the gym getting shots up in a chair before he could walk. He went from the chair to walking with a boot to finally putting a regular shoe on. From there, he started jogging, then sprinting, and the final step before he was cleared – he started jumping again. 

With him every step of the way was his father, Auburn assistant coach Wes Flanigan, who went through a similar setback when he was a player at Auburn. As a junior, Wes found out he had bone cancer. Like Allen, basketball was taken away from Wes. Just like that.

“The good thing about the whole scenario (with Allen) is that I had my situation to kind of draw from,” Wes said. “I knew it was going to be a struggle. He didn’t realize that. He was just like me. He thought that once he came back, the light was going to be switched back on, and he was going to be the same Allen Flanigan he was as a sophomore. I knew better than that.”

Allen Flanigan made his 2021-22 debut on Dec. 22, 2021, against Murray State, nearly four months after he suffered the injury, but he wasn’t 100 percent.

Over the next two months, Auburn would rise to No. 1 in the polls for the first time in program history behind guys like Jabari Smith, Walker Kessler and Wendell Green Jr. Flanigan, still fighting pain in his leg, saw his role diminish from what it was the year before.

“It was definitely a bittersweet feeling knowing that I wasn’t one of the guys coming off the injury,” he said. “Seeing guys like Jabari, Walker and Wendell step up and be able to deliver, it was really eye-opening for me just knowing I didn’t have to do what I did the year before. I soaked into that role and tried to do what I could to help the team.”

I cherish life more. I enjoy every moment, just knowing that one day basketball can be taken from you. The thing you’ve done all your life, worked for, and the thing you love the most – it can be gone in a split second.

Allen Flanigan

That team, Flanigan included, won a ring as the SEC regular season champion.

For Flanigan, this season has been even more meaningful because he’s got his bounce back. In August, one full year after the injury, he was exploding off the floor, getting by guys in practice, knocking down shots – he felt like his old self again.

It’s translated to the court. Through the first 15 SEC games, Flanigan is averaging 10.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. It might not be the same numbers he put up two years before the injury, but that has more to do with this team and his role on it.

“For me this year, I’m one of those guys when you insert me into the game, I’m just trying to find ways to win,” Flanigan said. “I’m not really worried about numbers or anything. I just want to do whatever the team needs. If we need it more on the boards that night, I’m rebounding and blocking out and making defensive plays. If they need me to score, I can score the ball, too. It’s really just picking up the pieces.”

“We got through that moment (last year), and I think my child learned a lot from that situation moving forward,” Wes Flanigan said. “For me, as a father, to see the growth and to see the maturation process. To see him out there being a better teammate, trying to lead from a vocal standpoint – which is really not Allen’s characteristic – to see him being patient and not get as frustrated as maybe he did last year at times, you can see that whole scenario last year and what he went through has done a lot of things for him.

“I think as he moves forward with his career, whether it be pro or whatever he decides to do long term in life, he’ll be able to draw from these situations he’s learned here at Auburn.”

A senior this year, Allen Flanigan’s Auburn journey is nearing the end. He started some games as a freshman and then burst onto the scene as a sophomore where he led the team in scoring. Primed for another big season his junior year, Flanigan’s trajectory changed with the injury. He missed the first half of the season and was never fully healthy.

Flanigan is healthy now and playing some of the best basketball he’s played while at Auburn. He also has a new perspective on life because of what he went through.

“I cherish life more,” Flanigan said. “I enjoy every moment, just knowing that one day basketball can be taken from you. The thing you’ve done all your life, worked for, and the thing you love the most – it can be gone in a split second.

“I want the Auburn Family to remember me as a kid who came in hard-nosed. He put the work in, he gave effort and energy night in and night out. A guy who was confident. He fought his battles, played through when he wasn’t feeling the best, never gave up. I was a guy who played with heart.”

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