Auburn Report Card by 001

This win put us in the driver’s seat! We now own at minimum a share of the SEC West championship. One more win and we will win it outright. The guys played one heck of a game last night to put us in this position. Rhodes played his heart out for this one. He had 30 points (career high), 9 rebounds, 2 blocks and only 1 turnover. But give everyone credit for this win. All of the starters were in double figures in scoring. Yes, I know that Auburn was out manned, but they have been playing really good basketball with their short bench. And they are well coached. Auburn ’s Quan Prowell hit a career high in scoring with 31 points. In fact 4 of their 6 players were in double figures. But be that as it was, we still beat them in all categories except free throw shooting where they beat us 76.9% to 75.0%.
OFFENSE A
This game was similar to the Ole Miss game where we put it all together. Shooting was outstanding for our guys. We were 16 for 27 for 59.3% in the first half and improved to 17 for 28 for 60.7% in the second half giving us 60.0% for the game. A new standard for State. For the game, we scored 16 points off of offensive rebounds. This was great! We turned the ball over 6 times in each of the halves for a game total of 12. This also is great for this team. In fact, Rhodes only turnover came just 17 seconds in the first half. Everybody that played gave productive minutes for our team. All of our starters shot in double figures lead by Rhodes with 30, and Gordon with 20. Turner was the only bench player to score with a 3 pointer. But Brian Johnson had an offensive rebound and an assist to Varnado for a dunk. Although we got somewhat lackadaisical in the first half, we came back in the second half with more grit and energy and played much better. Our 3 point shooting was much better in this game going 11 of 23 for 47.8%. And last, but not least, we shot the ball well from the charity stripe at 75.0%. This type of offensive play can win you a lot of ballgames.
DEFENSE A-
State played a very good defensive game tonight. The only player we had no real answer for was Quan Prowell. He was 7 of 10 from beyond the arc and had 20 points at half time. We did however do a better job on him in the second half limiting him to 11 points. We switched from man defense to a 2-3 zone at 15.35 minute after a media time out in the second half and held him to just two 3 pointers. Making this defensive change was a wise decision on Coach Stansbury’s part. You could see the disruptive power it had on the Auburn team. Also, on the defensive end of the court, we pulled down 26 defensive rebounds to Auburn ’s 16 offensive rebounds. Even with their scoring 78 points in this game, we held FG percentage to 39.4% for the game.
ASSIST TO TURNOVER RATIO A
In this game, our assist to turnovers was almost 2 assist to 1 turnover. We finished the game with 22 assists to 12 turnovers. Gordon had half of our turnovers, but also had 6 assists. Several of his assist while driving the lane were things of beauty because each turn out to be slam dunks.
REBOUNDING A
We again won the rebounding war collecting 36 to their 29. This was not quite as good as the first time we played them, but was adequate. Stats showed we pulled down 10 offensive boards and scored 16 points off them. This is very, very good. We also out rebounded our opponent on the defensive boards 26 to 16. Rhodes and Varnado both came up 1 rebound shy of getting a double-double.
3 POINT SHOOTING A
What more can be said about this category when our guys shot 47.8% from beyond the arc. Compare this to the South Carolina game when we shot just 27.8%. This type of 3 point shooting can win against about any opponent we face. Kudos to the team for this performance.
FREE THROW SHOOTING A
I was proud of the way our guys stepped up in this area of their game. 12 of 16 for 75.0% from the charity stripe. This just adds icing to the cake for State. Rhodes hit 7 of 8 and Hansbrough was perfect at 3 for 3. We need to stay in this shooting range for the remainder of the year for our overall success. Free throw shooting practice is paying dividends now.
OFFICIATING B
I should most probably give this category an A-, but just couldn’t bring myself to do so. The officials did allow the players to play. There were 3 or 4 instances where people got hammered under the basket without a foul being called. But a no call is better than having a foul called against us. The primary reason for this grade is I just can’t tolerate Doug “Showboat” Shows as a ref.
OVERALL A
Since I don’t use the officiating grade in the overall score, State gets an A. This game was very similar to when we beat Ole Miss in the last perfect game I scored an A. Coach Stansbury always talks about find the guys finding a way to win. In this game, they didn’t have to find a way to win. They won it heads up with beautiful basketball play.

P/S…If you will go back and read a column I wrote on February 5th, What's in the future for the Dawgs now?, you see a forecast I did for the remaining 9 games at the time. I now feel that with the way our Dawgs are stepping up to their potential, we have a very good opportunity for a victory at Florida this coming Saturday. Go Dawgs!!!