Sweet 16 Observations: Auburn 78, Michigan 65
Down 9 with 12 to play, the Tigers unleashed an avalanche in Atlanta to keep their best-ever season alive and get to the Elite Eight.
ATLANTA — The shot that saved Auburn’s postseason run came on a busted play.
Tahaad Pettiford and Johni Broome weren’t on the same page. With the way Auburn’s offense had played to that point, that wasn’t really a surprise. Auburn was down by nine to Michigan in the Sweet 16.
It looked like the Tigers were going to see their season end in surprising fashion: With hardly any success from their highly efficient attack, despite playing in front of a heavily pro-Auburn crowd in Atlanta.
After arguing with Broome about what was supposed to happen, Pettiford attacked with his right hand, went behind his back and pulled up for a straight-on 3-pointer. He hit it.
“I messed the play up,” Broome said. “I didn't know who was coming, but that just shows his shotmaking ability, and to be able to just be a dog at times and make plays.”
On the other end, Auburn got a Michigan turnover to hit the under-12 media timeout with just a 6-point deficit.
In the huddle, after Auburn’s players argued with one another for the mistakes they had been making, Bruce Pearl brought them all back together in the huddle.
“Forget everything that has happened,” Pearl said. “Just execute. Execute.”
Right out of the timeout, Auburn ran a set play that had Pettiford and Broome — working in sync this time — attack from the top of the key. Broome’s high-ball screen for Pettiford got the freshman guard to get downhill and driving toward the basket. After drawing a second and third defender down low, Pettiford hit a wraparound pass to a wide-open Denver Jones in the corner.
Splash. Auburn had gone from its biggest deficit of the night to trailing by a single possession in just 23 seconds of game time.
“That was the spark that kinda got me going,” Jones said. “I was really excited. I just felt like I could shoot anything, and it would go in.”
On the other end of the floor, Chad Baker-Mazara pulled in a hard-fought defensive rebound on a Danny Wolf miss to give Auburn a second consecutive stop.
After Broome cut Michigan’s lead to 1, the Tigers’ defense got a third and a fourth stop before Pettiford hit a go-ahead midrange jumper — one that was created by a pair of offensive rebounds off of Broome misses.
“We kept saying on the bench, ‘We haven't gotten three (straight) stops in the game yet,’” Baker-Mazara said. “And that's something we really take pride in. And Coach kept saying, like, ‘Yo, don't worry about the offense. The offense is going to flow. It's going to fall. Just make sure we pay attention to defense.’”
The 1-point lead soon grew to 3 on a pair of Baker-Mazara free throws. Then three straight makes from Jones — two more 3-pointers, then a driving layup — pushed Auburn up by nine.
Pettiford beat the shot clock a few minutes later with a stepback 3-pointer to put the Tigers up by double digits. He followed it up with a 3-point play on Auburn’s next possession, somehow hitting a spinning fadeaway midrange jumper through contact.
“Hopefully kids are watching my highlights in March Madness, saying they want to be there soon, just like I was,” Pettiford said. “It's a dream come true for me.”
An Auburn offense that had been allergic to taking care of the ball and hitting jumpers was doing both. An Auburn defense that couldn’t string together consecutive stops was doing that, too.
In just 10:23, Auburn had gone from down by nine to up by 14. It was a 31-8 run.
“It was just, we’re beating ourselves,” Broome said. “We’re turning the ball over and we’re not playing defense. Let’s cut these out, let’s take care of the ball and let’s start playing defense — and we’ll win this game.”
Auburn finished the game hitting 12 of its last 20 shots, including a ridiculous 5 of 7 from deep, and committing just one turnover in the last 10 minutes. Michigan finished the game hitting just 4 of its last 15 shots, including 1 of 6 from deep, with four turnovers down the stretch.
Because of that, Tigers were heading to the Elite Eight for only the third time in school history. They were also celebrating their 31st win in a season for the first time in school history.
“Let me tell you something: Coaches can help teams win games,” Pearl said. “Players win championships. … When those guys talk about getting stops or taking better care of the basketball or quit rushing offensively, it means a lot more than when I say it.”
Auburn still has a chance to win another championship. It’s all thanks to this remarkable, record-breaking team tightening up, locking down and taking care of business.
“I would say that we wanted it more,” Dylan Cardwell said. “This team, overall, we're in the last year of college. The biggest thing we say in the team room and the locker room is we want to leave the court with no regrets. Now, we can't control our shots. We can't control our free throws. We can't control our layups. We can't control a lot of things. But we can control our effort and energy.
“So, it's just making sure that when I look back 20 or 30 years from now, regardless of the outcome — hopefully it ends in victory — but we're leaving content with our effort and our energy and just giving our all out there.”
Here are four Observations from Auburn’s wild 78-65 comeback win over Michigan in the Sweet 16, along with the Rotation Charts, Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Night.
Tahaad Pettiford is, without a doubt, a dog
Auburn led Michigan by one at halftime Friday night, but it didn’t have much to do with the way the Tigers were operating on offense. In the first half, Auburn shot 32.4% from the field and 18.8% from deep while turning it over 10 times.
Pettiford was 2-6 from the field with zero assists and three turnovers. It felt like Auburn’s offense was dragging when he was at point guard, with the ball sticking with him a little too much. Pettiford also forced a couple of tough misses, trying to will himself back into the flow of the game.
But the freshman had the perfect mindset to reset from that.