Even before he arrived at Auburn Sharife Cooper knew JT Thor was someone he wanted to play with.

“Shoot man, I wish y’all knew how much I recruited JT,” Cooper said after Auburn’s win over Georgia. “I seen him. The first time I seen him was, I think Norcross, he was playing. We played before him and I’m like, ‘Yo, who is that?’ I seen him dunking and laying it up. His jumper was looking good so I was like, ‘Man, we need him.’”

Since returning to the court not only has Cooper shined, he’s helped elevate the game of Thor.

Against Alabama, Thor finished the game with 15 points, nine rebounds, four blocks, three steals and two assists.

Facing the Bulldogs, Thor finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and one assists in just 15 minutes of play. Thor was +17 on the night.

“I thought JT Thor had a really, really good game. I mean, you talk about being productive,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said. “You know, he, it's incredible. He's 3-3. A better coach would have got him more than three shots. He got to the foul line seven times. He led us in defensive rebounding with eight. And he was plus 17 when he was out there. Quietly, he's putting together back-to-back really good games. And his eight rebounds were all tough rebounds, traffic rebounds. JT's improving. His improvement has been very, very visible.”

As for the guy dishing it out to Thor, Cooper followed up his Alabama performance with an even better one.

In just his second career game, Cooper had a double-double. Cooper had 28 points, shooting 9-of-22 from the field and 0-4 from deep, along with 12 assists and five rebounds. Cooper was tied with Allen Flanigan for a team-high +18.

“Sharife Cooper was the best player on the court, and offensively, what he’s able to do is—we have six guys in double figures because he just shares it,” Pearl said. “Whether you’re at the rim or whether you’re on the perimeter, he’s hard to guard and it makes what we do harder to guard. It was good to get off the schneid a little bit.”

After the win, Cooper was pleased with his performance, but more pleased with the overall win.

“I feel good. It’s more about the win that made me feel good. Just getting on the right track, trying to get this thing rolling,” Cooper said. “There was a couple of things I did wrong, we did wrong as a team, last game in the last couple of minutes. So that kind of stuck with me today where I could finally get some relief and get a win.”

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