Observations: Auburn 80, Vanderbilt 68
Auburn built another early lead and lost it. But, this time, the Tigers punched back and secured a road win that could be big in the SEC race.
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Bruce Pearl thinks that his Auburn team has lost some of its edge.
Auburn has had the nation’s best offense for most of the season. But, for the majority of the first three months, the Tigers were stacking up valuable victories and turning tough matchups into comfortable wins with their ability to out-work the opposition.
This shows up most on the defensive end of the floor, yet it can carry over to offense. That edge wasn’t there last Saturday in a home loss to Florida. And, for a long stretch of its Tuesday night game at Vanderbilt, that edge wasn’t there.
“Our identity — and one of the things that got us off to such a good start this year — is we really started to take pride in how we guard and get stops and turn people over,” Pearl said Tuesday night. “It’s a long season. It’s a grind. And I think that we’ve lost a little of that edge. We’ve got to try to get that edge back a little bit.”
So it was fitting that, after seeing another early double-digit lead evaporate and finding itself trailing in the second half, Auburn rediscovered that edge with its hardest-working player leading the charge.
Vanderbilt had gone on an 8-0 run to take a 3-point lead early in the second half. After a less-than-100% Johni Broome split a trip to the free-throw line, Auburn’s defense got a stop through a steal from the also-“banged-up” Chad Baker-Mazara.
On the other end of the floor, Chaney Johnson tied the game on a tough turnaround jumper. A few possessions later, Johnson gave Auburn the lead on a corner 3-pointer. Johnson followed it up with a defensive rebound, then a driving layup.
“That was the one that sparked it,” said Denver Jones, who was sitting on the Auburn bench at the time. “I felt the energy right there.”
After another Auburn stop, Johnson hit a pull-up jumper. After yet another Auburn stop, Johnson hit another turnaround shot.
He had gone on a 9-0 run by himself, and Vanderbilt was forced to burn a timeout with the traveling Auburn crowd in Nashville in absolute raptures.
“Nashville’s been pretty good to us the last several years,” Pearl said. “When you play that well, we reward them. Mike Burgomaster did a great job — just kept going to the well. Fed the hot hand in there and took advantage of that matchup.”
After Johnson’s sensational surge, Vanderbilt never got within six points the rest of the way. Broome later went on a personal 9-3 run that was bookended by a pair of Johnson buckets.
The No. 1-ranked team that had blown an early 15-0 lead had built an even bigger lead in the final minutes, and it walked out of a building that had already seen two top-10 upsets this season with an emphatic 12-point victory.
“That was a really good win against a really good basketball team,” Pearl said after Auburn’s 80-68 win at Vanderbilt.
There will be plenty to learn and improve from this performance — especially considering the next game will be a legendary No. 1 vs. No. 2 road rivalry showdown with an Alabama team that’s currently the hottest team in a historically strong SEC.
Auburn is going to have to bring that edge to Tuscaloosa to have any chance of walking out of there with a victory.
But the Tigers showed Tuesday night that they could dig deep and find it once again. And, because of that, it will head to Alabama still tied for first in the league standings.
“I think it just shows the poise of this team,” Jones said. “Obviously, we're an older team. We've got a lot of guys that have been in that situation before, so I think that's why we were able to pull it through tonight.”
Here are four Observations from Auburn’s 12-point road win at Vanderbilt, along with the Rotation Charts, Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Night.
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
Chaney Johnson put the team on his back
Two years ago, Johnson was playing Division II ball at Alabama-Huntsville. Last year, he was showing some sparks for Auburn in a backup role behind Jaylin Williams.
This year, it hasn’t mattered that Johnson hasn’t been a regular starter. He’s getting starter-quality minutes, and he’s turned in a number of performances that showed by Pearl and his staff were so excited about bringing him in as an overlooked transfer.
None of those performances were as big as the one Johnson had Tuesday night in Nashville.