After Wednesday’s loss to Arkansas, Auburn is currently second to last in the SEC.
Despite having only one SEC victory, South Carolina, which plays Auburn at 11 am on Saturday, is ranked one place above her. But while Auburn has one more victory than South Carolina, he also has three more losses.
The discrepancy comes from the numerous breaks that Gamecocks had during their season. At this point, they played only seven games against Auburn’s 15 games, including just three SEC games.
The Gamecock season started with a canceled game, followed by a sequence of four games canceled or postponed in December. As soon as the league game started, they had two more games postponed. His trainer, Frank Martin fought and won COVID-19 twice.
“Of course, Frank Martin battling anything you know, he’ll come out on top,” said coach Bruce Pearl. “So we are praying and happy for your health.”
For the first time, Auburn enters a game with more experience of the season – he played four more games outside the conference and four more games from the SEC. But when it comes to years of experience, Auburn is still the underdog. Six of the seven players who started with South Carolina have at least three years of experience, while the seventh is in the second year. No freshman started.
South Carolina may be the only team with a conference win at the moment (Vanderbilt has no wins), but Pearl is convinced that Gamecocks have everything to be a competitive team in the league.
“This is how I see it now,” said Pearl. “I know they don’t have as much work as some, but I think they have the parts to get there.”
Two of these pieces are named Jermaine Cousinard and AJ Lawson. They are two of South Carolina’s top three scorers. Lawson averages 16.6 points per game, and Cousinard averages 11.6, and each has had five games in which he scored in the double digits.
Each of them also had two games in which they were wrong, and Martin challenged them to be better and more consistent. In the meantime, Auburn expects the two to have a third single-digit game.
“So we have to make an effort to recognize that and do the best we can to make others score and not let them get away,” said Pearl. “But if Couisnard and Lawson can see it, they can do it.”
Another factor in favor of South Carolina’s advantage is that it will remain in its jurisdiction. Auburn has played for Columbia four times since the 2013-2014 season, and lost four times. In addition, Auburn will be more tired of traveling from the turnaround of an away game on Wednesday night to an away game on Saturday morning.
“It’s a difficult turnaround for children,” said Pearl. “Children are resilient and will be fine … (those from South Carolina) had more time to prepare and rest. But we have enough. “
Energy, or lack of energy, played a big role in Auburn’s defeat against Arkansas, where he lost an advantage of 19 points to lose by two. Pearl said they really “ran out of gas.” Sharife Cooper, who has been the star since returning four games ago, played 36 minutes because Allen Flanigan, the reserve guard and one of the most trusted players on the court, committed four fouls for most of the second half. Thirty-six minutes is “too much,” said Pearl.
Auburn also lacked Justin Powell, who was the starting point guard in Cooper’s absence, as well as one of Auburn’s top scorers. Powell had a concussion and, although Pearl said he is “on a daily basis”, he also said that Powell has not been training.
Opponents have been defending Cooper very physically and aggressively in recent games. Pearl is sure that they are trying to get him to throw ball three, considering that his percentage of outside shots is 14%. Pearl agrees with this – he says Cooper is a great outside sniper – and he says Cooper is tough and can handle aggressive defenders.
Gamecocks proved to be physical in defense as well, and in the past Auburn’s game of guards was the key to defeating them. Therefore, Auburn will need to stay out of trouble and keep Cooper up to date to allow him to become the next point guard in a line of “breeders” who led the Tigers to victory over the Gamecocks.
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