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

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

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It's not that close.

A natty
4 SEC titles
Heisman winner
Bama domination

Auburn is dumb for not claiming it, 2004 as well.

Auburn HC Bruce Pearl: "They played well. They outplayed us. Their guards were really good. I think that Roberts makes a huge difference for them. Our challenge has been we've got up against really good guards, elite guards. Memphis. USC. And (now Georgia)."


I think we all know this but glad to see Bruce confirming it. When the opposing guards are better than yours in college basketball, it can be difficult to win. Glad he's not lying to himself about WG and KD I guess

What’s different is we took a bunch of tiny guards who weren’t particularly great shooters. Playing with Jabari flattered them, and now bad evaluations are coming home to roost.

This is compounded by other bad roster decisions. Why is Stretch still here? Probably should have tried to keep Cambridge (even if his shooting didn’t improve here like it has at ASU…).

I do think it's worth noting the unfortunate events with the 2021 off season that sorta laid the foundation for some of our issues today.
1. G - Sharife leaving after what amounted to 1/2 a season.
2. F - Thor leaves in what I thought was unexpected.
3. G - Powell transfers.
4. G - Jamal Johnson transfers.
5. G - Trey Alexander decommits.
6. G - Desi Sills can't get grade/credits worked out.

Yes, Bruce added Jabri and Walker that turned those negatives above around for last year but it shows how fragile a roster and recruiting can be. Several of those items above are game changers if they don't happen. Nobody, not even Bruce could have forecasted all those things would happen. Bruce did a marvelous job adapting to those changes for last year but this year some of those 2021 negatives are showing back up (domino effect). It's up to Bruce to get them corrected for next year's class and I think he's up to the job.

All good points. Another factor is maybe we land some better guys in the past couple of off-seasons if we don’t have the NCAA cloud hanging over us. We weren’t cleared until early 2022 IIRC

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G - Trey Alexander decommits.

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My understanding is this wouldn’t have happened if Bruce didn’t take WGJ and Zep and KD. Obviously you’d trade two of those guys for Alexander today, no question.

2020 Samir shot it ok. 2021 Powell and Johnson shot it pretty well. Last year was just the same shooters we have this year.

But most college basketball programs don't work on shooting technique. 90% of the time that comes from personal instruction with trainers in off-season or God- given ability. It rarely comes from the top down or from the program at all other than some exceptions (usually big men, Chuck Person worked with Wiley A LOT on shooting while he was an assistant).

Now we (and every program) shoot a lot in practice but that's more about taking what you already have and getting game speed reps and conditioning.

LINK

This SG (that stands taller than 6’0) is visiting Auburn this weekend.


Bad news: hometown is Little Rock.