Barstool Contender Series: How is Auburn Succeeding This Year? Plus, Top-25 Rankings
This was a series I started last season and something I want to continue this year. The goal of this is to highlight and discuss teams that are flying a little bit under the radar or just needs to be talked about that can contend on a national stage. Last year we covered the likes of Cincinnati, South Carolina, Dayton, Maryland and Notre Dame. We’ll take a look at different teams across the country as the season goes on, typically before or right after a marquee game and breakdown their strengths, weaknesses and what to expect moving forward. I plan on doing these every Monday as we head into March. We move on this year with Auburn. You can read the rest of the Contender Series as it goes on here:
Just moments before the college basketball season got underway news broke of an FBI investigation that changed the course of the season for a handful of teams. Louisville lost its AD and Hall of Fame head coach. Four other teams lost an assistant coach. USC lost arguably its most important player. The schools that were tied up in this – USC, Arizona, Louisville and Miami were supposed to have big years. Oklahoma State was in a rebuilding year. Then there was Auburn. A school almost forgotten about when this broke because well, it’s a football school that didn’t have expectations for college basketball. Hell, after they announced the suspensions of Danjel Purifoy and Austin Wiley the expectations were to finish last in the SEC by all accounts.
When Auburn lost to Temple in the third game of the season no one thought much of it. It was the semifinals of a holiday tournament that not many people were even paying attention to. But, then the craziest thing happened. Auburn started winning again. The Tigers got win at Dayton, neutral vs Middle Tennessee and at Murray State. Again, no one really thought much of it because it’s not moving the needle. Then Auburn won at Tennessee in early January. That should have moved the needle, right? Well sure, except for it happening right after the college football semifinals when that’s all people wanted to talk about it. So now Auburn sits at 22-3, 10-2 in the SEC with a 2 game lead and most recently the top No. 2 seed according to the committee.
What the hell is going on out here?
To start, the suspensions of Purifoy and Wiley may have been a blessing in disguise. Don’t get me wrong these are 2 of the 3 most talented players on the roster but when you look at why Auburn is succeeding it’s due to what they have. Currently Auburn is made up of ‘positionless’ players. They are running a bunch of dudes between 6’3″-6’8″ who can all do a little bit of everything. Purifoy is a guy who needs to get his shots, he’s a scorer. Wiley is your traditional post player who demands the ball in the low post and can make the offense feel a little stagnant while you’re trying to slow it down and pound it inside. There’s depth to this roster too with Pearl using 9 guys at least 14 minutes per game. It reminds me a bit of his old Tennessee teams.
Auburn is an excellent offensive team by every metric. The Tigers rank 6th in AdjO on KenPom. They rank in the 90th percentile nationally per Synergy with .99 points per possession. They are top-75 in effective field goal percentage, 3PA/FGA, 3-point percentage, offensive rebounding percentage and turnover percentage. Part of what makes them great is how unselfish they are as well, part of it due to how fast they play offensively. If Bryce Brown doesn’t get a shot in 5 possessions it’s not a big deal, because he knows there’s 5 more possessions coming soon for him to get his bucket.
There are two sets in which Auburn really wants to attack you in. They are killing teams with spot up shooting and ISO sets, ranking in the 94th and 84th percentiles respectively. A large part of that is due to the fact you have to respect guys like Brown, Harper and Okeke who are all shooting above 41% from the 3-point line while Heron can beat most people off the bounce. What makes Auburn’s offense unique is the fact they still give you a traditional look with the nontraditional lineup. They’ll put 6’8″ Okeke in the post and surround him with four guys. They’ll bring him up for the high ball screen (a personal favorite for Bruce Pearl). The other thing they do is they like to run a lot of action cuts. You’ll often see one wing making a cut to replace on the other side. You’ll see flare screens on one side while there’s a replace on the other. Here you can kind of see the traditional set and what I’m talking about. It’s just a 3-2 high set with the high ball screen, wings in the corner and replacement happening.
This play against LSU is one that I keep going back and watching as one that just sums up this team. It naturally starts with the high ball screen – again, a common thing said when talking about Auburn’s offense. Attacking the lane off the ball screen, LSU is forced to collapse 3 players into the post, including Tremont Waters. Harper, who has turned into an absolute tremendous facilitator, realizes there’s a collapse kicks it to an open DeSean Murray (Waters guy). As Waters starts to recover, Murray gets a touch pass to the corner for an open three. This is what Auburn is doing night in and night out.
Defensively, we’re seeing a massive improvement. The Tigers have jumped from 147th on KenPom to 37th in just one year. That’s up from 153rd during Bruce Pearl’s first year at Auburn. The main reason? The ability to switch everything and still protect the rim. Auburn is 5th nationally in block percentage – sort of a crazy stat when you look at the roster, Anfernee McElmore (at just 6’7″) is one of the best shot blockers in the country.
Auburn runs man for 90% of possessions. Again, its man is slightly different than most due to the roster makeup. What Auburn does extremely well though is gets into a press to force turnovers. The Tigers will press you about 25% of the time and are forcing turnovers on the press about 23% of all possessions. That’s leading to easy buckets and run outs for a team that wants to play uptempo. When they switch a smaller guard onto a big, you’ll see a 3/4 to full front of the post with a bunch of weakside help. Auburn will double down in the post but what it does really well is stays at home. They are always in help and don’t really gamble, they just trust you’ll make the mistake. This play against Georgia sort of sums that up. The moment Ogbeide picks his dribble up from behind the arc (not a threat), Auburn is going to win. His man drops back to take away the hi-lo pass. The wings start denying and opposite corner is leaning in. The result? Well, it’s about what you’d expect.
This is a good team that you shouldn’t discount because it’s Auburn or because it plays in the SEC. This is a team that committee showed respect for placing it as the top No. 2 seed currently. It’s also one of the best or perhaps craziest stories in college basketball. That’s where Bruce Pearl is coming into play. There’s no better coach in America than Pearl when it comes to using the back against the wall mentality with his team or playing the nobody believes in us card. He has this group rolling. Don’t be surprised when they are playing in the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Top 25
1. Villanova
2. Virginia
3. Xavier
4. Michigan State
5. Texas Tech
6. Purdue
7. Cincinnati
8. Auburn
9. Clemson
10. Gonzaga
11. Duke
12. Kansas
13. Ohio State
14. Tennessee
15. West Virginia
16. Texas A&M
17. Rhode Island
18. UNC
19. Arizona
20. Nevada
21. St. Mary’s
22. Butler
23. Oklahoma
24. Michigan
25. TCU