VANDERBILT-AUBURN -- A PEARL OF WISDOM

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zemek
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Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2016 4:17 pm

VANDERBILT-AUBURN -- A PEARL OF WISDOM

Post by zemek »

Information and analysis on Auburn's players contain contributions from college basketball freelance writer and researcher Nathan Giese.

The Vanderbilt Commodores have to dust themselves off and mentally reset the dial after the gut-punchiest of gut-punch losses they have suffered in Rupp Arena over the years. The Big Barn in the Bluegrass has been an annual house of horrors for VU, and while (thankfully, I suppose) Tuesday night's loss did not mean the difference between an NCAA bid and an NIT bid -- just imagine the heartache if that had been the case -- it represented VU's most painful loss in Rupp purely on the basis of the plot twists involved.

A foul 65 feet from the basket in a loose-ball situation with a few seconds left is bad enough. That Riley LaChance got a second chance to hit important foul shots against Kentucky... and missed, again... is in some ways worse than the foul. Regardless, the series of events which sank the Commodore ship read straight out of a Stephen King novel, at least in terms of the screams of horror they surely generated throughout Nashville.

The need to mentally reset against Auburn on Saturday is important... but it's not the Pearl of wisdom being referred to.

The most central insight offered by Auburn basketball is that patience pays off.

Vanderbilt fans know Bruce Pearl well. The high-energy coach used to wear orange jackets when Tennessee played VU. Pearl put his imprint on Vol-ball, lifting UT to a 2 seed in the 2008 NCAA Tournament and to the Elite Eight in 2010. In an SEC stocked with schools still seeking their first Final Four in men's basketball (South Carolina reduced that list by one last March), Pearl seemed ready to take Tennessee across the altar... but he memorably barbecued his chances. (Spare the comments about a barbecue and a cookout being different, as correct as they might be -- "he memorably cooked out his chances" doesn't roll off the tongue, so "barbecued" is a better word choice. Glad we got that settled.)

Maybe Auburn is where Pearl will take an SEC basketball program to a first Final Four... all while Vanderbilt fans realize their wait will have to continue.

Pearl -- if he had to say anything encouraging to Vanderbilt fans -- would surely say something along the lines of, "Be patient with Bryce Drew. Look at how long it took me to get this project off the ground."

It has taken four seasons for Pearl to create a team with all his signature marks on it. It is reasonable to expect a coach to begin to hit his stride in Year 3 -- for either football or hoops -- but last year was a series of endless frustrations for Auburn, which never managed to turn the corner. Then came the news that Austin Wiley -- perceived (legitimately) as a game-changing recruit -- would be held out for the first several games of Auburn's season due to ongoing NCAA investigations related to the scandal which rocked college basketball in early October and brought the FBI into the sport's underbelly.

Danjel Purifoy was also supposed to add value to this season's Auburn roster, and he was also held out. In time, both players were ruled out for the season. The hope of a January arrival for those two recruits never materialized.

Plenty of coaching careers -- or if not careers, individual tenures at a specific school -- never got off the ground because something went wrong with a prized recruit at a pivotal point in a program's development. (Just one example out of many: Tubby Smith's Minnesota tenure could have been great if Royce White had stuck with the program, but his troubles led him out of Minneapolis and to Iowa State, where he helped the Cyclones make the NCAA Tournament. If Tubby had been able to coach White for two seasons, imagine how well he might have been able to do. Coaches can't entirely control their fates.)

Pearl had to be exasperated by the Wiley-Purifoy mess. (Could he have hired assistant coaches with a better ethical compass? Yes. That's worthy of further discussion, but it's on a different track compared to the subject matter being discussed here.)

Auburn's season could have gone off the rails. Removed from a worst-case scenario, the Tigers very easily could have become what most SEC teams have become in 2018: erratic from week to week, good enough to avoid long losing streaks but nowhere near consistent enough to win five or six games in a row.

Instead, without the centerpiece recruit (Wiley) who was supposed to turn AU hoops into a giant, Pearl has molded Auburn into the SEC leader by multiple games and a team with a great shot at a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, nearly matching the 1 seed forged by the 1999 team coached by Cliff Ellis.

No Wiley, no problem -- the Pearl imprint can be fully seen on this Auburn roster. Depth, speed, three-point shooting, pesky ballhawking defense, maximum energy -- they're all there.

Auburn went through a patch in mid-January where it fell behind by 10 or more points at halftime in a cluster of games, but in more recent weeks, Auburn has been able to play first halves on relatively even terms. When AU plays first halves on relatively even terms, it generally wins big. Auburn has destroyed its opponents -- making use of its depth and energy in a way Mike Anderson and Arkansas could only dream of -- in second halves of games throughout the SEC season. Slapping a plus-15-point second half on the opposition has become a regular occurrence for the Tigers, who don't have superstars or overwhelming size.

It took four seasons to get here, but Auburn and Pearl made it. Bryce Drew and VU fans have not enjoyed this season, but Auburn shows that a big breakthrough is worth the wait.

Here's a look at Auburn's notable players:

Auburn’s offense is a lethal machine that can score at will. The Tigers rank 10th nationally in points per game (85.7) and a defense that’s forced 343 turnovers this season.

Bryce Brown: Brown leads the team in scoring at 16.6 points per game. He can score in a variety of ways, but his best assets come from spot-up jumpers, totaling 138 points on 103 attempts. He shoots over 40 percent from 3-point range but has taken just 100 two-point attempts compared to 186 attempts from three. Brown doesn’t get to the free throw line all that often and will not attack the glass.

Brown is average in defending the pick-and-roll but exceptional in almost all other situations. Opponents are shooting just 23 percent with Brown as the primary defender.

Mustapha Heron: Jumpers and transition situations -- that’s where a very large chunk of Heron’s offensive opportunities have come this season. Heron does score over 15 points per game, but he doesn’t excel in any one area besides that. He’s second on the team in free throw attempts and rebounds.

Heron’s a decent defender. Not great, not horrible.

Jared Harper: He is another 40-percent three-point shooter for the Tigers, but that number is well above his overall shooting percentage of 37. His shooting ratio is 104 threes to 84 twos, so look for him to spend plenty of time along the perimeter. Harper also doesn’t attack the glass much but does have 120 assists.
Harper is also average defensively. There is not much more to go on beyond that. Five players on the team have 20 or more steals and he’s one of them.

DeSean Murray: Murray has hit exactly half of his shot attempts this season (81 of 162) and leads the team with 7.1 rebounds per game. A majority of his attempts have come off offensive rebounds. He’s also the best free throw shooter on the team, hitting 85 percent of his attempts at the line.

Murray has to defend jumpers more than any other type of shot attempt this season and he has done a decent job, but like most on the Auburn roster, he’s not great.

Anefree McLemore: McLemore is not one of the biggest offensive threats on the team, averaging just 7.7 points per game. He has connected on 53 percent of his shot attempts and, though he doesn’t do it often, can step out and hit the three. McLemore has 66 blocks on the year, which ranks in the top 10 nationally. Keep in mind that he’s 6-foot-7 and blocking that many shots.

If he’s not blocking shots he’s average defensively, as is most of the team. Brown carries the team defensively but McLemore’s blocking ability adds some weight as well.