Auburn’s Friday-night showdown with Cal State Northridge might have been over as soon as Samir Doughty put on his headband.
Doughty — in his second game sporting a Bryce Brown-like headband — dropped 16 points in the first 12 minutes en route to a career-high 33 points, as No. 22 Auburn routed Cal State Northridge, 116-70.
"I just wanted to be aggressive," Doughty said. "... I just wanted to be in attack mode the whole night."
The Tigers’ 66 first-half points marked their most in a half since they scored 72 in the final 20 minutes against Northwestern State in 2015.
It was all Auburn from the commencing tip, as it hit 8 of its first 12 attempts from downtown. Doughty connected on his first four triples as he eclipsed his career-high of 20 points in the first 19 minutes. As a team, the Tigers shot 49 percent from 3-point range for the night (17-of-35).
"We still got a long way to go, but we played better," said Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl. "We clearly shot it, shared it and we overwhelmed our opponent, which we hadn't been able to do yet."
As Auburn scored up and down the floor seemingly at will, point guard J’Von McCormick was the facilitator. The senior from New Orleans logged a career-high in assists with 16, including a number of alley-oops in the second half that kept the Auburn Arena crowd into the action despite the blowout.
McCormick now owns the new Auburn single-game assists record, beating out Eddie Johnson's 15 assists against LSU in 1976. He assisted on 76 percent of the offensive possessions he was on the floor.
"They told me at halftime I was pretty close to breaking it, so I tried to get it," McCormick said. "... We knew coming in that the next pass was going to be the best pass."
Thirteen Tigers saw the floor, and six scored in in double digits: Danjel Purifoy with 16 points; Doughty with 33; Austin Wiley with 10; Anfernee McLemore with 10; Isaac Okoro with 17 and Devan Cambridge with 10.
Doughty and Okoro are the only players to have scored in double figures in each of Auburn's four games to start the season.
After Auburn missed crucial free throws late that allowed South Alabama claw back on Tuesday, it hit 15 of 16 at the charity stripe in Friday's win.
Auburn hosts Colgate on Monday at 7 p.m. CST.
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