Can this Aggie team beat Auburn?

2,723 Views | 39 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by Ags #1
GE
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Argument for:
  • Auburn is 0-2 on the road and Auburn was never within closer than 5 in either of those games down the stretch.
  • They shoot a lower free throw % as a team than A&M
  • They haven't beaten a good team since November
  • They are as turnover prone as A&M
  • A&M is 5-1 in the last six games against Auburn going back to Pearl's first season there

Argument against:
  • Auburn is a much better three point shooting team
  • Auburn as a whole has more talented players and more depth than A&M
  • Auburn has more players who are excellent at creating for themselves and scoring
  • All of Auburn's losses are to teams better than A&M
  • Auburn has several large bodies to throw at Nebo and Meko
  • All of A&M's wins are over teams worse than Auburn

Verdict:
Auburn is justifiably the favorite but not as prohibitive a favorite as one might suspect. In particular, I'm interested that they aren't a great free throw shooting team and haven't yet won on the road. Make it a rough, physical game and A&M has a legit shot.
Hop
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This team can beat anybody at home. That doesn't mean they will.
GE
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I wouldn't be surprised at all if we won a close game or got blown out by 25. The only surprise would be if we blew them out.
EXCELL
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CAN they? Yes. Every game is theoretically winnable.

Will they? No. I'm just hoping that we don't get blown out and embarrassed.
coloradoag69
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I haven't seen Auburn play, although they are #16, I think, so they must be good.

Just considering our lack of big men, it's hard to see how we are helped by a really physical game.
Steeple
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Auburn seems to be a very talented but often undisciplined and streaky team. Taking advantage if those tendencies will be critical.
Expert Analysis
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Hop said:

This team can beat anybody at home. That doesn't mean they will.

We have shown a greater ability to lose to anybody at home than to beat anybody at home.
Gap
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Auburn has a NET ranking of 17 and we are at 81. It would be an outstanding win if we were to pull it off.
Hop
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coloradoag69 said:

I haven't seen Auburn play, although they are #16, I think, so they must be good.

Just considering our lack of big men, it's hard to see how we are helped by a really physical game.
I know the depth is an issue, but the further we move down the schedule, the better I feel about our two posts. They have become a strength as opposed to a liability. It's the guards that are killing this team.
Ags2013
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Hop said:

coloradoag69 said:

I haven't seen Auburn play, although they are #16, I think, so they must be good.

Just considering our lack of big men, it's hard to see how we are helped by a really physical game.
I know the depth is an issue, but the further we move down the schedule, the better I feel about our two posts. They have become a strength as opposed to a liability. It's the guards that are killing this team.


Sounds familiar... Is it last year already?
Method Man
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Hop
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Ags2013 said:

Hop said:

coloradoag69 said:

I haven't seen Auburn play, although they are #16, I think, so they must be good.

Just considering our lack of big men, it's hard to see how we are helped by a really physical game.
I know the depth is an issue, but the further we move down the schedule, the better I feel about our two posts. They have become a strength as opposed to a liability. It's the guards that are killing this team.


Sounds familiar... Is it last year already?


I'd take last year about now.
bobinator
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It really is pretty simple with this team. If Starks and Mitchell can keep turnovers down and get some easy baskets for guys, then we've got a chance against most people.

That said, I don't particularly like this matchup. We'll have to do some things well that we don't normally do very well (prevent offensive rebounds, not get a **** ton of our shots blocked, shoot threes)
EXCELL
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Even after the great performance, we are still averaging around 14 turnovers per game

That and our miserable 3pt shooting are the biggest problem areas with this team
Aston04
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Hop said:

coloradoag69 said:

I haven't seen Auburn play, although they are #16, I think, so they must be good.

Just considering our lack of big men, it's hard to see how we are helped by a really physical game.
I know the depth is an issue, but the further we move down the schedule, the better I feel about our two posts. They have become a strength as opposed to a liability. It's the guards that are killing this team.
Depth has never been that great thing for BK to manage anyway. Less to juggle with the rotation with a simple roster... As long as he has enough depth to not overly plunge into the walkon pool anyway.
bobinator
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I don't really think we have a "lack of big men." We have two guys that can play the 5 and several that can play the 4 or we can just go with a four guard lineup if we really have to for a while.
GE
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bobinator said:

I don't really think we have a "lack of big men." We have two guys that can play the 5 and several that can play the 4 or we can just go with a four guard lineup if we really have to for a while.
It's a lack of depth. If Nebo or Meko were to get injured this team would be beyond screwed now that Jasey is gone.
bobinator
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Yeah, I was just saying I agree that when it comes to actual matchups in a given game we're okay. Obviously we're not in a great spot from an overall roster standpoint.
GE
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bobinator said:

Yeah, I was just saying I agree that when it comes to actual matchups in a given game we're okay. Obviously we're not in a great spot from an overall roster standpoint.
Got it. I agree. Not dominant like Davis and Williams were but more than sufficient to compete. If I had to diagnose this team's primary problems, it's 1: defending the opposing guards and forwards and 2: poor outside shooting.

Edit: defensively we're 65th in field goal percentage defense this season compared to 25th last season. 24th in '16-'17.

Three point shooting we are hot garbage. 339th nationally at 28.6%. Awful.
bobinator
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Yeah, I'd rank our issues as follows:

#1) We can't shoot. We're horrific at shooting the ball from beyond the arc. Now, some of that is because we don't have great shooters anyway, but part of it is we don't do a good job of getting the shooters we do have open. (goes back to my constant banging of the drum of how bad we are at screens and picks.)

#2) We allow a ton of offensive rebounds.

#3) Our guards, particularly Starks but Mitchell and Chandler do it quite a bit also, drive to places where they have very little chance of something good happening. It's hard to specifically quantify this, but it shows up in our turnovers, two point fg percentage (44% for Starks, 49% for Chandler, 36%(!) for Mitchell) and in the number of shots we get blocked (which is a ton, according to KenPom our offensive block % ranks #331.)
Serious Lee
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im curious what auburn fans think about pearl. they, like us, havent had much historical success but now have a super talented team. after all the hand wringing we had last year, im trying to imagine how our fans would react to how pearl is squandering their talent, cause they arent a very good team like they should be.
wacarnolds
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Quote:

If I had to diagnose this team's primary problems, it's 1: defending the opposing guards and forwards and 2: poor outside shooting.

Edit: defensively we're 65th in field goal percentage defense this season compared to 25th last season. 24th in '16-'17.
Our 2 pt defense and 3 pt defense are fine (although we still give up more 3PA than most teams); the main issue is limiting shot attempts for our opponents, via turnovers and defensive rebounds. We're not good forcing turnovers and we're really bad at protecting against offensive rebounds so our opponents have relatively more shots at scoring, which is enough to overcome our defense when they actually do shoot, and turns what should be a good defense into just an ok defense from a per-possession perspective.
wacarnolds
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Uncle Gunnysack said:

im curious what auburn fans think about pearl. they, like us, havent had much historical success but now have a super talented team. after all the hand wringing we had last year, im trying to imagine how our fans would react to how pearl is squandering their talent, cause they arent a very good team like they should be.
They still seem to be on cloud nine that they have a good team and i don't really get the idea that they're struggling or squandering a super talented team. Do they have any sure fire NBA players? I see Austin Wiley projected as a fringe 1st round guy but that's all about projecting a guy with great height.

They lost a tight neutral site game vs Duke and two road games to good teams. Were people expecting them to go 30-2 or something?
DTP02
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wacarnolds said:

Quote:

If I had to diagnose this team's primary problems, it's 1: defending the opposing guards and forwards and 2: poor outside shooting.

Edit: defensively we're 65th in field goal percentage defense this season compared to 25th last season. 24th in '16-'17.
Our 2 pt defense and 3 pt defense are fine (although we still give up more 3PA than most teams); the main issue is limiting shot attempts for our opponents, via turnovers and defensive rebounds. We're not good forcing turnovers and we're really bad at protecting against offensive rebounds so our opponents have relatively more shots at scoring, which is enough to overcome our defense when they actually do shoot, and turns what should be a good defense into just an ok defense from a per-possession perspective.


I feel like part of our defensive rebounding problem is bigs having to help too much on drives because our perimeter defenders get blown by too often.

That's not all of it, because failure to box out has killed us as much or more than anything else, but to me in terms of sequencing it starts on the perimeter, and that doesn't necessarily show itself in our FG% stats.
wacarnolds
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DTP02 said:

wacarnolds said:

Quote:

If I had to diagnose this team's primary problems, it's 1: defending the opposing guards and forwards and 2: poor outside shooting.

Edit: defensively we're 65th in field goal percentage defense this season compared to 25th last season. 24th in '16-'17.
Our 2 pt defense and 3 pt defense are fine (although we still give up more 3PA than most teams); the main issue is limiting shot attempts for our opponents, via turnovers and defensive rebounds. We're not good forcing turnovers and we're really bad at protecting against offensive rebounds so our opponents have relatively more shots at scoring, which is enough to overcome our defense when they actually do shoot, and turns what should be a good defense into just an ok defense from a per-possession perspective.


I feel like part of our defensive rebounding problem is bigs having to help too much on drives because our perimeter defenders get blown by too often.

That's not all of it, because failure to box out has killed us as much or more than anything else, but to me in terms of sequencing it starts on the perimeter, and that doesn't necessarily show itself in our FG% stats.
I think that is a big part of our defensive rebounding issues, having a leaky perimeter defense exposes your bigs to a lot of penetration and gets them off their man who is open for an easy rebound. I think part of it is also due to our bigs being eager to jump and contest shots which is a catch-22 of giving you the shot at a block but leaving you in poor defensive rebounding position.

You can be above-average as a team at both blocks and defensive rebounding (see A&M v.2007), but it requires a total buy-in from the entire team and playing a small guy at the 4 spot makes puts us behind the 8 ball there.
ontheway
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Captain Obvious
GE
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wacarnolds said:

Quote:

If I had to diagnose this team's primary problems, it's 1: defending the opposing guards and forwards and 2: poor outside shooting.

Edit: defensively we're 65th in field goal percentage defense this season compared to 25th last season. 24th in '16-'17.
Our 2 pt defense and 3 pt defense are fine (although we still give up more 3PA than most teams); the main issue is limiting shot attempts for our opponents, via turnovers and defensive rebounds. We're not good forcing turnovers and we're really bad at protecting against offensive rebounds so our opponents have relatively more shots at scoring, which is enough to overcome our defense when they actually do shoot, and turns what should be a good defense into just an ok defense from a per-possession perspective.
We're 108 in rebound margin at +3.4 per game.

Your turnover margin comment is an excellent observation: we're 203rd at -0.3 per game.
bobinator
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Yeah... I was going to say, they're pretty good.

They kind of tripped down the stretch last year, but they're good this year and they're going into a stretch where they'll probably be favored in like 10 of their next 11 games.

Not sure you could say they're squandering talent or anything.
Hop
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wacarnolds said:

DTP02 said:

wacarnolds said:

Quote:

If I had to diagnose this team's primary problems, it's 1: defending the opposing guards and forwards and 2: poor outside shooting.

Edit: defensively we're 65th in field goal percentage defense this season compared to 25th last season. 24th in '16-'17.
Our 2 pt defense and 3 pt defense are fine (although we still give up more 3PA than most teams); the main issue is limiting shot attempts for our opponents, via turnovers and defensive rebounds. We're not good forcing turnovers and we're really bad at protecting against offensive rebounds so our opponents have relatively more shots at scoring, which is enough to overcome our defense when they actually do shoot, and turns what should be a good defense into just an ok defense from a per-possession perspective.


I feel like part of our defensive rebounding problem is bigs having to help too much on drives because our perimeter defenders get blown by too often.

That's not all of it, because failure to box out has killed us as much or more than anything else, but to me in terms of sequencing it starts on the perimeter, and that doesn't necessarily show itself in our FG% stats.
I think that is a big part of our defensive rebounding issues, having a leaky perimeter defense exposes your bigs to a lot of penetration and gets them off their man who is open for an easy rebound. I think part of it is also due to our bigs being eager to jump and contest shots which is a catch-22 of giving you the shot at a block but leaving you in poor defensive rebounding position.

You can be above-average as a team at both blocks and defensive rebounding (see A&M v.2007), but it requires a total buy-in from the entire team and playing a small guy at the 4 spot makes puts us behind the 8 ball there.
That is a great point. Our perimeter man-on-man defense is horrid and forces the bigs to rotate for help. Our guards have no idea about the concept of cutting off a baseline drive and defensive spacing in general. And yes, that's part coaching, but also part meathead.
GE
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Perimeter defense might be where we are missing Admon the most. That and having a reliable three point threat.
bobinator
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That's why our zone is sometimes effective even though we're horrible at it from a fundamentals standpoint. It's easier for our guys to cut off penetration if we just kind of rotate around and stand in front of shooters without having to worry as much about being screened off or having to fight through traffic.

It really works when the other team only has one really good shooter in the game. Auburn can put a few on the floor at the same time though.
Kyle Field Shade Chaser
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Hop said:

This team can beat anybody at home. That doesn't mean they will.
Love the enthusiasm...but No. I don't think they can beat anybody at home. Not much of a home court advantage at Reed currently.

Duke, Michigan, Gonzaga...I'll start with those, and would put money on them beating the Ags at Reed 3 out of 3 times this year.

BQ_90
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Motracicletraficificker said:

Hop said:

This team can beat anybody at home. That doesn't mean they will.
Love the enthusiasm...but No. I don't think they can beat anybody at home. Not much of a home court advantage at Reed currently.

Duke, Michigan, Gonzaga...I'll start with those, and would put money on them beating the Ags at Reed 3 out of 3 times this year.


they can't beat any team on a hot streak at home.
Serious Lee
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im mostly comparing them to tennessee, who they tied with last year. they both returned the nucleus of their teams. one seems to have improved and the other has taken a step back.
wacarnolds
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Uncle Gunnysack said:

im mostly comparing them to tennessee, who they tied with last year. they both returned the nucleus of their teams. one seems to have improved and the other has taken a step back.
I guess by that standard, a few people are probably upset that they aren't the best team in conference. But Auburn was #23 last year according to KP, and #12 this year.
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