AI-assisted summaryThe Auburn Tigers basketball team extended their winning streak to 14 games with a dominant victory over the Oklahoma Sooners.Auburn’s stifling defense held Oklahoma to a season-low field goal percentage, showcasing their national top-30 rankings in both field goal and 3-point percentage defense.Despite a relatively quiet scoring night from National Player of the Year […]
AI-assisted summaryThe Auburn Tigers basketball team extended their winning streak to 14 games with a dominant victory over the Oklahoma Sooners.Auburn’s stifling defense held Oklahoma to a season-low field goal percentage, showcasing their national top-30 rankings in both field goal and 3-point percentage defense.Despite a relatively quiet scoring night from National Player of the Year candidate Johni Broome, the Tigers displayed their offensive depth with multiple players contributing double-digit points.Coach Bruce Pearl emphasized the team’s commitment to continuous improvement, acknowledging the inevitability of future losses while maintaining focus on reaching their full potential.AUBURN — Two months. Eight-plus weeks. Sixty-two days. One-thousand-four-hundred-eighty-eight hours. That’s nearly 90,000 minutes, and more than 5 million seconds.However it’s sliced, it’s the length of time since Auburn basketball has lost a game.
Take it all for what you will. Auburn has been the nation’s No. 1 a whole month for a bevy of reasons. But on a night where it welcomed a member of college basketball’s best conference that was seemingly on the come-up, it stomped them. It made it look easy, despite a “down night” in its best player’s 15-point output and some late-game theatrics, to boot.Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email atacole@gannett.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter,@colereporter.
That’s the whole point of this Auburn offense. It’s not often flashy. It absolutely can be, but at its best, on a night filled with spats and scrappy play, it simply shows up. And it can come from anywhere.Johni Broome did what Johni Broome does, matching a team-high with 15 points. But the National Player of the Year frontrunner, who’s averaging a double-double, saw his offense go uncharacteristically quiet down the stretch. As he logged just two second-half points, Auburn showed its offense prowess, much like it did when going undefeated without Broome for a pair of wins over ranked teams last month.So, any doubts you have about Auburn being head-and-shoulders above the rest of college basketball may not be alone. Its emphasis on defensive and its offensive depth may be pushing it to such heights. But it could also be said that’s what’s doing the pushing is the man who’s in your company, certain the nation’s best aren’t quite there yet.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.REQUIRED READING:How Auburn basketball beat two ranked opponents without Johni Broome
“We have to get better,” he said when asked if the world had seen the best of his squad. “By the way — we’re going to get beat. It’s coming up. We’re going to lose a game, or lose games. But our focus is to get better.”It turned to Chad Baker-Mazara, who also had a game-high 15. He scored 11 of those in the second half — and he tallied those in seven minutes. On a less-than-average night from distance, Auburn still hit six triples. Denver Jones and Tahaad Pettiford, the Tigers’ two other double-digit scorers, carried that statistic, making three each.
While Auburn didn’t have many others post flashy offensive outputs, it found scoring with efficiency. Dylan Cardwell had eight points on 4-of-4 shooting. Miles Kelly, while going 4-of-11 from the field, still scored nine points. And Chris Moore, who’s averaging less than a point per game, had six points on a 2-of-2 night.Tuesday marked exactly two months since the Tigers’ latest defeat, which came by two possessions to No. 2 Duke, in Cameron Indoor Stadium, no less. On the anniversary of defeat, Auburn picked up another victory with ease, cruising past Oklahoma for a 98-70 win.The Tigers logged their second-straight game in which they dropped 90 points on a league opponent in the Oklahoma manhandling. They also recorded their largest margin of victory in SEC play. For another apt summation of the evening, you could turn to the losing the coach.
HOW IT HAPPENED:Auburn basketball, Johni Broome manhandle Oklahoma, make it look easyLike any Pearl-led team, offensive success be darned, these Tigers clearly pride themselves on defense and have all season, posting top-30 marks nationally in field goal and 3-point percentage. As for the offense, Tuesday served as another reminder of what these Tigers are capable of, largely evidenced by their largest point total in SEC play coming in unorthodox fashion.For the Blue Devils? It’s been easier. They haven’t played a ranked opponent since hosting Auburn, and they’ve played just four KenPom top-50 teams. But trust the resume and analytical comparisons at your own discretion. Duke holds the head-to-head advantage, after all.If that’s not enough to see that this squad is in a caliber of its own, you’re not alone in that — Pearl is right there with you.
“They’re long, and they play really hard,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said. “They play extremely hard and long. They’re competitive defensively and physical defensively. And if you do get by them, they don’t stop.”In the time since the Duke loss, the Tigers have won 14 straight. They’ve beaten five ranked squads, bringing their season total to a program-record eight, and they’ve won all nine of their games against the SEC; a league which has all 16 teams in the KenPom top 100. Of Auburn’s 14 wins, nine of them have come against KenPom top-50 squads.‘THEY WANT TO MAKE HISTORY’:Just how good can Auburn basketball’s 2024-25 season be?Instead, try using Auburn’s performance against Oklahoma — winners in three of its past four — as a deciding factor.
