Guard play wins in March, and that's especially true for Auburn
In the NCAA Tournament under Bruce Pearl, the Tigers are undefeated when they hit a magic number of points from their backcourt.
AUBURN — When Auburn beat Creighton last Saturday to advance to the Sweet 16, it was all about feeding the hot hand on offense.
And there were plenty of hands out there for the Tigers.
Chad Baker-Mazara scored five of Auburn’s first seven points of the game, then had a run early in the second half where he got 12 of the Tigers’ 15 that helped them take control of the game.
Tahaad Pettiford scored 14 of his 16 second-half points in a total takeover of the final eight minutes of Auburn’s 82-70 victory.
Denver Jones hit several of the biggest shots of the game, including a go-ahead 3-pointer early in the second half, a beautiful stepback triple during the Tigers’ first 10-0 run and a late and-1 that virtually iced the win.
It basically didn’t matter that Baker-Mazara had to leave the game early due to a hip injury.
It basically didn’t matter that Miles Kelly saw his hot streak in Rupp Arena come to an end with a 1-8 night shooting.
It basically didn’t matter that National Player of the Year winner Johni Broome had an inefficient night of offense down low.
Auburn still scored 82 points, including 47 in the second half, to race past Creighton and punch its return trip to Atlanta for the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend.
“Obviously, for us to be able to score 82 and shoot 60% in the second half — I thought we controlled the game in the second half with our offense,” Bruce Pearl said after the win. “Again, played like we've been playing all year long, just sharing it. Coach Greg McDermott told me after the game he recognized we had a really, really good team, and so do they.
“Our guys played up to their ability today, very proud of them.”
We know what Pearl believes his guards aren’t. But we also can guess what he believes his guards are… scorers.
Auburn’s guards combined for 60 of those 82 points for Auburn. Pettiford had 23, Baker-Mazara had 17, Jones had 15 and Kelly had 5.
Why is that important? For starters, it’s the most points that an Auburn backcourt has produced in an NCAA Tournament game under Pearl.
And Auburn’s guard production has been an extremely strong predictor of how the Tigers’ postseason matchups are going to go under him.
Here are the total numbers of points that Auburn’s guards — as defined as the point guards, shooting guards and small forwards in the Tigers’ system — have scored in each of their NCAA Tournament games under Pearl: