Defensive weaknesses and cleaning up without Broome

Auburn escaped South Carolina with a win. It wasn’t pretty, but it was an SEC road win in a game that wound up giving Auburn every excuse needed to lose.

Auburn star Johni Broome went down early in the second half and is expected to miss time with a non-surgical ankle sprain.

I can’t go without saying the injury reminded me of an injury to Anfernee McLemore in the same building — an injury that derailed a lot of Auburn’s momentum during Bruce Pearl’s first SEC title winning season on the Plains.

That injury did give some crucial experience to the guys who wound up returning for the following season. This team could experience something similar, with the added potential of getting its injured player and not needing an offseason to recoup.

But, whether or not you’re talking about the injury, there are some questions that Auburn has to answer.

Auburn’s defense has a weakness

Auburn was torched by versatile forwards in its last two outings. And honestly… it makes sense.

The Tigers have played a lot of two-big lineups, featuring Broome and Dylan Cardwell on the court at the same time. These lineups create mismatches for some teams, but they also put two of Auburn’s slowest players on the court.

Auburn has also been playing an extended hedge-and-recover method of defending ball screens. These too can create a lot of havoc—especially with Auburn’s athleticism—but it makes a big defend near the logo at times.

Texas exposed Auburn on both fronts.

Texas ran ball screens and beat Auburn’s rotations/recovery with passes, and Arthur Kaluma handled the ball and took advantage of his slower matchup several times.

This play sums it up well. Broome and Tahaad Pettiford hedge the screen and Broome is slow to rotate back to his man who is screening Chaney Johnson and opening Arthur Kaluma up for a three.

Broome goes under the screen on a quick forward who can shoot.

The South Carolina game showed these same trends. Not only did Collin Murray-Boyles do well against Auburn’s two big lineups, but he also slowed down in the second half when Auburn was without Broome. Maybe that’s a coincidence, but Chaney Johnson had some excellent defensive possessions that help reinforce that.

Note how much quicker Chaney Johnson is able to get around these screens. He almost deflects the pass and still has enough time to recover for a block.

Murray-Boyles wasn’t hitting threes like Kaluma, but he was using the extra split-second that he got from Auburn’s recovery/speed to get downhill.

It’s nice to throw a few ball screen hedges at teams, but it’s easy to get in rhythm against these defenses if you run good offense and have good passers. The hedge requires fast and athletic players for recovering, but you can always beat a fast player with a pass. We saw Auburn do just that against Houston’s ball screen blitzes.

Auburn’s defense is constantly recovering from the attempted hedge and South Carolina stays a step ahead with passes.

I don’t know how often Auburn runs these numbers wise, but use these aggressive hedges as a special play call and maybe they’ll create just as many steals and deflections while preventing offenses from getting into a rhythm against it.

Overall I think Auburn’s defense is fine. Adjustments need to be made, but Auburn has shown a high floor and has plenty of tools. These different defensive looks have their place too, but Auburn might be benefit from making them matchup based calls.

Things could also even out if Auburn can maximize its rebounding when the bigger lineups are out there.

What to do without Broome?

There’s no one you can plug into Broome’s role, so you might as well try and add some spark to someone else’s game.

If Chad Baker-Mazara, Johnson, Denver Jones, Tahaad Pettiford, and others can take on a bigger role then it will only make the team more capable/versatile when Broome returns.

Someone will also have to step up with Broome out as a leader. Pettiford seems like a shoe-in with his late game heroics, but I’m interested to see if Baker-Mazara or Jones take that team leader role first.

But the injury will impact more than roles. Without Broome, Auburn only has one true power forward on the team in Johnson. Auburn also has a one-time five-star recruit teeming with talent on the back end of the bench in Jahki Howard. I’m watching to see if Auburn plays some small ball with more Howard and/or if more minutes for Chris Moore at power forward result in more minutes on the wing for Howard.