Observations: Auburn 93, Wofford 62
The Tigers put together a second straight rout of a smaller underdog. Now they have to take that momentum into a showdown with Houston.
AUBURN — Steven Pearl threw his hands up as the ball kicked over to a wide-open opposing player on the wing.
As it ripped through the net for a 3, Pearl stomped in frustration and motioned to the nearest official for a timeout.
A few moments later, with his Auburn players surrounding him in the huddle, Pearl voiced his clear and obvious frustrations with them.
“If you don’t do the little things that are required to win, then I’m gonna get after your ass,” Pearl aid. “They understand that. I thought they did a really good job of that when I brought them in. I got after them pretty good. They all were looking at me in the eye, they all nodded their heads, and they were all ready to go.”
Hanging above their heads over center court, the scoreboard read AUBURN 72, WOFFORD 44. Yes, that open 3-pointer had only cut Auburn’s lead to a still-dominant, still-covering 28 points, and there was only 8:50 left on the clock.
“They’ve gotta understand that I don’t care what the score is,” Pearl said. “We could be down 30, I’m still gonna coach that hard. Obviously, we were up 30, and I’m still gonna coach that hard. They understand that’s just who I am. It’s something they’ve gotta learn from, and it’s something we’ve got to continue to build on.”
In that moment, Pearl wasn’t coaching his Auburn team to beat an overmatched Wofford side. (It did, though, winning 93-62.)
The scoreboard inside Neville Arena might as well have said HOUSTON on it, because that upcoming matchup with the No. 1 team in the country — the first massive challenge of the new Pearl era — was definitely looming.
But you can’t stop there. There’s a matchup with No. 2 Purdue down the road. Before that, it’s No. 5 Arizona. Before that, it’s No. 6 Michigan. Oregon and NC State are receiving votes in the AP poll, and they’re on the schedule, too.
And let’s not forget an SEC slate that has current No. 8 Alabama, No. 9 Kentucky, No. 10 Florida, No. 20 Tennessee and No. 21 Arkansas.
“We were trying to talk, trying to guard,” wing Elyjah Freeman said. “That’s been our biggest thing all year so far. Just trying to guard, because we know who we’ve got the rest of the schedule.”
Freeman might have been the perfect example of the message Pearl was trying to get across Tuesday night in the final home tuneup against Wofford. The former Division II transfer scored 14 points in the first half, but Pearl wasn’t pleased with his defense.
“Got after Elyjah pretty good, and I thought he did a much better job in the second half of really locking into his man and not staring at the ball and not getting out of his stance,” Pearl said.
Freeman finished the game — his third at this level — with a team-high 21 points. He became the first Auburn player to outscore Keyshawn Hall in a single game this season, although it only came by a single point.
Perhaps more importantly, Freeman was +29 in plus/minus for the game, second only to Hall’s +32. He made a two-way impact that went beyond the scoring, adding five rebounds, three assists, a block and two steals with zero turnovers. Hall had team-highs in rebounds (11) and assists (6) while throwing in three blocks and two steals.
In the end, Auburn blew out a paycheck opponent with relative ease, the second consecutive one after that Opening Night overtime game with Bethune-Cookman. The Tigers have now scored 90-plus points in their first three games for only the second time in program history, joining the 1987-88 team.
Pearl and his team could be pleased with how they performed for most of the win over Wofford. The final “quarter,” so to speak, is where things started to slip with a big lead — like the defensive breakdown that led to the timeout.
As Pearl said afterwards, “the standard is the standard.”
“Great teams are going to play hard for 40 minutes, and I thought we played hard for 30,” Pearl said. “Got to put a complete game together for us to be able to beat the best teams on our schedule, and we’ve got a really good one on Sunday.”
Here are four Observations from Auburn’s 93-62 win over Wofford, including the Rotation Charts, Nerd Stats and Quote of the Night.
