Saturday, January 23, 2021
Auburn Tigers in South Carolina Gamecocks
Colonial Life Arena – Columbia, South Carolina
Time: 11am
Network: ESPN2, Auburn Radio Network
In the Bruce Pearl era, there were only 3 teams that Auburn had not beaten on the road. Two of them are Kentucky and Florida. The other is South Carolina.
Auburn (8-7, 2-5) seems to take that off the list, as the Tigers have yet another dispute on Saturday, this time on the road against South Carolina (3-4, 1-2). Gamecocks are one of the biggest mysteries of this season at the SEC, as they dealt with COVID issues throughout the season, canceling several games. Today is Auburn’s 16th game, while only 8th for Gamecocks.
Discover South Carolina
Unfortunately, we don’t have a question and answer session today, so you just have to read my ideas. Today is only the third home game that South Carolina has played in the entire season. They had to postpone 3 SEC games and canceled 5 of their non-conference games this season.
Frank Martin’s team has an identical scoring margin, averaging and allowing 72 PPG so far this season.
Junior guard AJ Lawson (# 00) leads the way to South Carolina with an average of 16.6 PPG this season. Missouri held him to 5 points on his last attempt, but averaged 26 PPG against Texas A&M and LSU, so Lawson must have a recovery game.
Striker Junior Keyshawn Bryant (# 24) has had impressive performances in consecutive games since the return of the COVID team. He has averaged 13.4 PPG this season and set a career record of 26 at LSU before moving on to 19 in Missouri.
Guard Jermaine Couisnard (# 5) of the second year of the Redshirt is the third in the team with an average of 11.6 PPG. Couisnard led South Carolina with 16 points in last year’s game against Tigers.
Junior Redshirt striker Justin Minaya (# 10) has an average of 9.1 PPG and is the team leader with 8.1 RPGs this season.
Finally, anchoring the painting is Wildens Leveque (# 15). The 6’10 ”240 pound dealt with foul problems last time, but made 12 points and 8 rebounds in LSU. He averages 6.1 PPG this season.
Keys to Auburn
Wednesday night was a difficult defeat for Auburn, a game in which he built a 19-point lead and failed to maintain it. The Tigers lost some free throws in the final stretch and, in the final seconds, were left without a chance to mark Sharife’s attempted victory. It was definitely a disappointing defeat, considering that the team kept the two Arkansas scorers under control.
Sharife Cooper tripled his career total of 3 points by taking down a pair against Arkansas on their way to a 25-point game. With the teams continuing to double it, how will it be able to adjust?
Wednesday was a difficult night for Allen Flanigan, who faced problems and finished with just 7 points. This is a great chance for Allen to recover.
Auburn needs more from Jaylin Williams. There are times when he looks great (Ole Miss game) and times when you wonder where he is on the ground. He scored just 2 points on Wednesday night and my hope for Jayliin is that he seems to be more aggressive on the offensive side.
Devan Cambridge had its debutante party the last time these teams clashed, yesterday, a year ago.
Devan went to 26 points in 10-14 shots, 6-9 out of 3 and we had a big catchphrase from coach Pearl post-game on Devan’s performance.
It would be great to see Devan give us something like that today.
Finally, one of the good points of Wednesday night was the play by Javon Franklin. He made the most of his 11 minutes scoring 8 points, including a pair of 3 points and gave the team a spark when he was on the court. Does Franklin get a few more minutes today?
Prediction
After winning 3 consecutive games in Columbia in early 2010, Colonial Life Arena recently turned into a house of horrors for Auburn, as did the Memorial Gym in Vanderbilt. Auburn lost by 29 in the 2016-2017 season, the momentum of the 2017-2018 dream season was interrupted by Anfernee McLemore’s terrible injury and then a no-call in a final 3 resulted in a loss of 3 points the last time these teams played in Columbia 2 years ago. What happens today?
Do Tigers get big games from guys other than Sharife Cooper? We’ll see.
I was terribly lucky to choose Auburn to win in the SEC game and with that on the road …