re: 2022-23 Auburn basketball season thread- 21-13 (10-9) Season over

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Hopefully we can get in the tourney.

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Earlier in the week they said they are just working to get him back to 100%. I think he will get another shot soon. Have to with KD and WG playing like this. Donaldson and Zep aren’t exactly lighting it up but I would like them to get the lions share of minutes and lean on the front court for now.

I kinda disagree in that I didn’t think we took horrible shots last night. We just don’t have guys that can finish. Wendell took a couple of dumb threes but other than that we took open looks from 3 and bunnies around the rim most of the game. We just lack bucket getters on this roster.

We have no chance with Jaylin playing like he did last night against a top 100 KenPom team on the road.

Nyc, agree. Shoots were ok except for the dumb out of control layups. Our offense isn’t good enough to overcome the TO’s. That’s why I like Zep at PG. Zep isn’t perfect, but he makes better decisions and less TO’s.

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KD, Wen, and Al have shown zero development over their careers. In fact, they were all better earlier.

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KD led Georgia to beating Auburn basically by himself as a true freshman. He played strong and physical.

His regression is unexplainable. Even without the deep range shot, he should still be savvy enough to affect the game in other areas.

So at what point are we allowed to start criticizing Bruce for our team’s development? Some people think we can never criticize him because we sucked before we hired him, but surely at some point we need to start seeing improvement correct? I feel like our teams overall have regressed the last several years.

Bruce has characteristically had a couple throw away seasons here or there and then he will lead us to contending for titles the next year.

I mean our last 5-6 years of basketball has been arguably better than any stretch our football program has ever had. We aren’t going to be #1 or win an SEC title every season. Which is basically what we have done every year other than the Covid year since 2017.

Edit: '82-'89 Auburn football might rival it but it's close.

At the end of the day the program is still in great shape just gotta get better guards. And we have a really dang good one on the way.

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So at what point are we allowed to start criticizing Bruce for our team’s development?

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I would say when we see multiple years in a row of struggling.

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Some people think we can never criticize him because we sucked before we hired him, but surely at some point we need to start seeing improvement correct?

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I mean… we won the conference last year and were ranked #1 at one point. Middle of the year they were without a doubt the best team in the country. Ended up peaking too early.

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I feel like our teams overall have regressed the last several years.

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21-22: Struggled at the end of the year but still one of the best basketball teams in Auburn history.

20-21: Not good at all but was also a perfect storm of bad. Youngest/least experienced team in the country, COVID, and were without starting PG and best player for most of the year.

19-20: I think this team had potential for a deep tournament run. As veteran of a team as you can have that had their season cut short by COVID.

18-19: Caught absolute fire at the end of the year.

When two of the last four teams are two of the best in program history, I don’t think you can say the program in on a clear-cut regression.

I think it’s more than fair to criticize Bruce for this team itself. Nowhere near ready to criticize him for how he runs the program/questioning if we can do better, because we can’t.

The key word here is "missed". They certainly have targeted and been in the running for some quality guards. G League bit him on a couple and others just chose a different school. They're going to need to close on some of these players with the help of NIL to keep the train rolling. I have faith in Bruce & Co. and Aden seems to be a good start. When you only take 3-5 players each cycle, you don't have much room for error. This season looks like it's going to be a tough pill to swallow but I see better days ahead.

If it makes you feel a little better, just remember what we looked like in the Barbee years . We've actually come a loooong way.