Things to get out of the way first:
1) The South Alabama team AU played tonight wasn't the same USA team AU annihilated by 50 last season. They added several portal transfers to beef up the bench. Their starting five, all juniors and seniors. This team will win the Sunbelt Conference and will likely make the NCAA Tournament. Despite what anybody thought going in, this was no cupcake.
2) This was South Alabama's Final Four. Biggest crowd in the 21-year history of the arena. Probably 60% Auburn fans, but the South crowd was into the game (even though they didn't seem to know a lot about basketball in general). Really good atmosphere.
3) Students are dumb. The "Bruce is fat" chant was really lame.
4) Our fans behaved well with a few exceptions. They celebrated the 85th birthday of some guy who's given millions and millions of dollars to the university. And one of our lone jackasses bellowed "War Eagle" at the end of the halftime ceremony. Not necessary. A few doofuses were doing loud Weegle cheers outside the arena. Also not necessary. The South fans leaving that stadium deserved nothing but respect for the way their team played.
Now. The game.
1) Austin "How Do You Do Mrs." Wi-LEE either had a very off night or he just doesn't have it. He was consistently getting beaten under the basket on defense, he wasn't effective with or without the ball on offense. The guy was a fouling machine. I hate it because I want him to succeed, but he just didn't have it.
2) Anfernee McLemore was more effective than Wiley when he was in the game. But neither had the impact that Nigerian freshman Babatunde Ankingbola brought. With the game in flux and both Wiley and McLemore saddled with four fouls, Baba came off the bench, immediately delivered a soul-crushing block, blocked another shot on a subsequent possession and held his own in the paint. He did have a chance to make a momentum altering dunk but hesitated and mishandled the ball. Still, the potential for domination was clearly there. Baba Ankin has a chance to be good. It's my personal opinion that had he not been in for the few minutes he was on the court? AU would probably have lost.
3) The team as a whole didn't move well without the ball. There were a lot of people standing around on offense. Expected more. Just not a lot of movement or help.
4) Once AU went up by double digits in the fourth, it looked like they got complacent. South had something to play for and something to prove. With 8 minutes left, AU was up 14 and had South pinned. Only scored seven more points the rest of the way.
5) There were two players who seemed to be playing at a different level than anybody else. Samir Doughty hustled from start to finish. His hustle on the last series of the game was the difference between winning and losing. Isaac Okoro also worked hard most of the night.
6) Freshman Okoro is the real deal. He just needs time to grow and learn. After South clawed all the way back and drained a three with 20 seconds left to take a one-point lead it was Okoro that made a falling-down jumper off a Doughty feed with 1.3 left to clinch the game.
7) McCormick didn't have a great night, but he did hit a trio of treys, each of which came at critical times. He also missed all three free throws he attempted which is baffling. Okoro was the only other Tiger to miss a FT all night.
8) One thing I noticed that concerned me was a big fat zero offensive rebounds in the first half. That was cause for pause.
Does Auburn look like a Final Four team? Does it look like a team that will win the SEC? Not tonight. With McLemore, Doughty, Okoro and Ankingbola and McCormick? It's got a chance to be a pretty decent team, though. South Alabama -- unless I'm completely wrong -- was a sterner test than most folks realize.
I saw an AU team that, at times, checked out of the game. I saw a team that got a little rattled when South went on that second-half run. I saw a team that never really found a rhythm. But I saw a team that took the ball with 20 seconds left, trailing by one and had no sense of panic. In those last twenty seconds, AU missed at least three shots, out-hustled South for rebounds and somehow managed to pull out a win even as the USA crowd was poised to rush the court.
Pearl sweated completely through his suit and the Tigers celebrated at the end. I'm glad AU won, but had I been there to witness South Alabama's students storming the court I wouldn't have been completely devastated.
Something else I saw. Checking highlights and the Alabama women's basketball team has what I believe to be the fattest hog ever to wear a collegiate uniform on the basketball court. Good lord that sow is huge. I'll put that in its own thread.
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