Everything is bigger...
Auburn proved that nothing comes easy on the road, fighting off an almost 20-point comeback to down Texas 87-82 in Austin.
The win was a big one. Not only did it snap an 11-game road losing streak to top 50 KenPom teams, but it gave Bruce Pearl the record for all-time wins at Auburn.
It wasn’t a pretty game, but it was an SEC road win on a night when only one other SEC team won on the road — with No. 1 Tennessee and No. 6 Kentucky both losing by double digits away from home.
I’m not too concerned with the comeback either. It seems like Auburn is getting bored and playing with its food lately. The Tigers need to fix that, but there’s a chance that better competition is all that’s needed.
While the game wasn’t pretty, but some of the key factors in Auburn’s win were.
Auburn’s depth was on full display. It wasn’t simply minutes distribution that showed off the depth either, it was the quality of play that came from several players who haven’t been talked about as much in recent games.
Kelly and the depth
After five games in single digits, Miles Kelly came out firing away and ended with his highest point total against a power conference opponent since arriving at Auburn.
Kelly’s 18 points, three shy of his season high in game one against Vermont, came on a four-of-six night shooting from deep. It was Kelly’s first game in double digits since Richmond and his first game with multiple threes since Ohio State.
It was encouraging to see Kelly flip the switch so easily. With the amount of firepower Auburn has in the backcourt, the ability to find rhythm after a hot-streak from one of your fellow guards is valuable. It’s something that makes this depth different than the depth of years’ past.
In years past, this might be a blast of hope that there’s a way Auburn can start shooting better.
This year, the depth Auburn has—while similar in minute distribution and versatility—is higher quality. Auburn doesn’t need its best shooter to play well enough to carry the three-point percentage every night.
The guys who made up Auburn’s backcourt for the past few years were a mixture of good players and sometimes-fun-to-watch players, but there’s a difference in going to your bench for KD Johnson and going to your bench for Miles Kelly. There’s a difference in this point guard rotation, and even the quality of play Auburn is getting out of positions with returning players (like center and small forward) is better than it was last season.
It didn’t stop at Kelly either. Jahki Howard continued his come up, making plays on both ends of the court while shooting three-of-three inside the arc. On top of that, Chris Moore got some run and scored his first basket against a power conference opponent since the Duke game.
It makes this Auburn team hard to gameplan for. Not only can they stay fresh and aggressive thanks to the depth, but you might spend all week preparing for a guy shooting around 70 percent from three in the previous five games (like Denver Jones) just to have another NBA-level shooter (like Kelly) light you up.
On Bruce Pearl’s benchmark win
Bruce Pearl is the winningest coach in Auburn basketball history, a title he deserves — and not only because the numbers say so.
Pearl deserves to go down in Auburn history as much as any other coach does. Auburn was the SEC’s doormat when he arrived. Tony Barbee was fresh off Bryan Hardin-ing the basketball program before Hardin had probably even heard of Auburn, and the Tigers hadn’t won more than 15 games in a season since 2009 when Pearl arrived.
This season, Auburn has the National Player of the Year favorite, has held a No. 1 ranking on most analytical polls, won a Maui Championship, and has garnered just about every other accolade able to be earned before conference play.
Auburn might be the house Charles Barkley built, and the Tigers did have some elite teams in the late 1990s, but the level of success we’ve seen under Pearl was unimaginable in my early life as a fan.
I see people on Twitter sometimes dismissing the job Pearl has done because there aren’t as many deep tournament runs, but the job he’s done at Auburn is so much more than wins. Pearl has built a national contender out of nothing. He campaigned with students to get fans in the arena, he put together great staffs, elite talent evaluators and developers, and convinced great players to join the program before there was much (if any) proof. The proof is in the national perception and the yearly expectations. They were nothing like this a few short years ago.
Enter this season and Pearl has now brought Auburn to such heights that it doesn’t matter what you saw or what you missed. These elite teams don’t need any context to be appreciated because they—specifically this season’s team—have been the best in the country. They’ve been the best in Auburn basketball history.
The complete turnaround of the Auburn basketball program has been a labor of love and a work of art.