‘We didn’t play our best.’ Bruce Pearl describes Auburn’s opening NCAA Tournament win
Auburn, both a 1 seed and the top overall seed in this year’s men’s NCAA Tournament, dispatched 16 seed (and play-in game winner) Alabama State 83-63 in the round of 64 on Thursday at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
Head coach Bruce Pearl’s Tigers eased to victory behind 23 points from senior guard Miles Kelly and a double-double from potential national player of the year winner Johni Broome. The former Morehead State star had 14 points and 11 rebounds in his double-double effort. Next up, Auburn will take on 9 seed Creighton in a round-of-32 matchup on Saturday at Rupp. The Bluejays impressively dispatched 8 seed Louisville earlier Thursday at Rupp. It’s been a shaky start to the NCAA Tournament for the SEC, which got 14 of its 16 schools into the field of 68. But Auburn took care of its business Thursday, and the Tigers will look to do so again Saturday. Until then, here’s everything Pearl said after Auburn topped Alabama State.
Just congratulate Alabama State on a great season, a historic season for the Hornets. They represented their university in an outstanding way. They were a formidable opponent. We didn’t play our best, but I think they had a lot to do with it. So I just give them a great deal of credit. Miles was terrific. Tahaad was terrific at times. Johni dominated on the inside when he had to, but trust me we can play — and we’ll need to play — a lot better. Again, we missed 14 free throws, we made 18, and that’s going to catch us in a close game. These next games have a chance to be closer, so we’ve got to sharpen up in that area. Part of that is valuing possessions, and if there’s one thing I can get my guys from this point forward to lock into right now, did we value every possession on the defensive end? Did we value any offensive end scoring through contact? Did we just rely on the whistle? And then would we finish plays? That’s the biggest difference right now between the way we were playing earlier in the season and the way we’re playing right now. You can do that against a team that you’re better than, but you can’t do that — we won’t be able to do that from this point forward.