Out-played, out-coached, but still undefeated
AUBURN | Not a lot went right for No. 14 Auburn Thursday night, but Bruce Pearl wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Tigers fought back for an 81-78 win over Furman in overtime despite making just 4 of 25 from 3-point range and committing 19 turnovers. Auburn improves to 8-0 on the season, the best start since breaking out to a 17-0 record in 1998-99.
“During the course of the season, players are going to get out-played sometimes, coaches are going to get out-coached sometimes,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “I thought Furman did a tremendous job tonight with their preparation.
“And when I said that to my team, they had these funny looks on their face. I’m like, ‘Guys, don’t you ever get out-played?’ It happens every now and then. I said, ‘I got out-coached tonight.’ I just think they did a really good job with what they did, and we never got into any kind of a rhythm offensively. I think the nine-day layoff was a factor because we weren’t particularly sharp.”
The adversity the Tigers faced, trailing by 14 in the second half and shooting so poorly, can be used as an opportunity to grow. It’s only the second game that has come down to the final possession. The Tigers won at South Alabama Nov 12 on a last-second shot by Isaac Okoro.
“We’re going to find out,” said Pearl of his team responding to adversity. “We were down at half against Richmond. We were down at South Alabama. We were down 14 the second half here. So we’ve faced some adversity now. We’re fortunate to be—being undefeated at this point. So. I think everybody’s very cognizant and aware of where we’re at.”
The Paladins led by 14 points with 16:09 left in the second half before the Tigers stormed back with an 8-0 run to get back in the game. Furman led by four with three minutes left, but Austin Wiley had a dunk and J’Von McCormick back-to-back layups to tie the game 66-66. McCormick had a final layup attempt at the buzzer, which bounced out to send the game to overtime.
Auburn held Furman to just 8 of 24 shooting from the floor in the second half and scored 14 points off 10 turnovers.
“Our second half defense was tremendous,” Pearl said. “To give that team only eight field goals, down 14, got stops, got rebounds. From that standpoint I was obviously pleased.
“Sitting here after eight games, quite frankly I was expecting more games like this, more games like South Alabama. We’ve already had a couple of them. Again, talking about how good a team we are, I’m telling you we’ve still got a ways to go. You may have saw that more tonight because we about got beat, but we’ve got a ways to go."
Okoro led the Tigers with 18 points. The freshman added nine rebounds, three assists, one blocked shot, but had six turnovers. Wiley had his third double-double in the last four games with 13 points and 12 rebounds. He also had two blocks and two steals, and didn’t commit a turnover in 29 minutes.
Samir Doughty had 13 points despite going 0 of 7 from beyond the arc and committing six turnovers, and McCormick had nine points, four rebounds and four assists. Anfernee McLemore added nine points and Allen Flanigan eight off the bench.
Auburn returns to action against St. Louis Dec. 14 in the Mike Slive Invitational in Birmingham, Ala. Tip-off at Legacy Arena is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT on ESPN2.