Observations: Purdue 88, Auburn 60
It was a similar result to the last two losses, but the process was different. And that's what the Tigers say they'll take away as SEC play looms.
INDIANAPOLIS — Steven Pearl knows you might not want to hear this.
The first-year Auburn head coach says his team “can’t get blown out” like it has now three times in the last six games. He’s called himself “the worst loser in the world” a day after the first one of those. He continues to say the Tigers have to get a lot better.
But, in the immediate aftermath of a 28-point loss to Purdue in what was basically a road game Saturday, Pearl took a decidedly more optimistic tone than he’s had after several of Auburn’s wins this season.
“I’m proud of my team,” Pearl said. “People might not want to hear me say that right now, but I am. These dudes, they do everything we ask them to do. We've put them in front of a lot of really, really good opponents. We'll be better for it in the long run.”
Auburn is 8-4, with all four of those losses coming against teams that currently make up half of the top eight teams both in the AP poll. The three lopsided losses have now come against three of the top five teams in the KenPom ratings.
The humans and the computers agree: The Tigers have gone through a gauntlet, with the three losses coming on trips longer than any they’ll face in SEC play.
“Would I rather be 9-3?” Pearl said. “Of course. 10-2? Sure. But 8-4, with the schedule that we've played, is solid. It's not great. But for a team of 10 new guys — and only one returner from a Final Four team — it was a lot.”
And, even though the last of those four losses came by nearly as much as the ones to still-unbeaten Michigan and Arizona, Auburn didn’t walk off the floor against Purdue thinking it had played the same type of game. It shouldn’t.
First of all, Auburn’s offense scored just 60 points, the fewest in a game in nearly two years. The Tigers, even in blowouts, have been able to perform better than 36% from the field, 28% from deep and just .938 points per possession.
Needless to say, Auburn needed a lot more than that when facing the nation’s highest-rated offense in what was essentially a road game. But Pearl wasn’t completely displeased with the way his offense went about its business.
After all, Auburn had fewer turnovers than Purdue and had assists on nearly two-thirds of its makes — areas that had been major issues recently. It just couldn’t put the ball in the basket anywhere close to a consistent basis.
“I think you're gonna like a lot of the open looks we got in this game, I'm telling you,” Pearl said. “I'm gonna watch this film, and I'm gonna be more encouraged than most people are gonna be back home. I know I'm going to. Watching it in real-time, I can't tell you how many times I was like, 'Great shot! Damn, we missed it.'
“Then, on the other end, they made those. That’s the difference in the game.”
Purdue lit up the scoreboard against Auburn, shooting 56% from the field and 46% from deep while averaging 1.345 points per possession. But, again, it wasn’t because the Tigers constantly got lost on defense and didn’t put forth the right effort — more areas that had been major issues recently.
“I definitely think we took strides,” shooting guard Kevin Overton said of Auburn’s defense. “We followed our game plan. We did the things we wanted. Like (Pearl) said, they made a lot of tough shots. … But, at some point, we've got to turn that corner.”
It’s easy to look at the results of a game and base all of your analysis on them. Besides, the results are what go in the record book, the stat sheets and the box scores. They’re how players, coaches and entire programs are judged.
It’s harder to look at the process and find the differences, especially when the final score looked a whole lot like the losses Auburn desperately wanted to avoid repeating.
“Tonight is the one exception where I thought we competed at a level that the score wasn't what I thought it was,” Pearl said. “The Michigan and Arizona games, we just got our ass kicked. We didn't execute, we didn't play with the effort and energy that we typically do. Tonight, I thought we flew around. I thought we battled.
“We missed shots. And when you miss shots in tough environments, that's going to happen against a really good team.”
Again, fans might not want to hear it, but Pearl and his Tigers believe it.