Men: Hard row to hoe.
Let’s get to the good news first: Tay Waller finally returned from his quad injury in last night’s 87-52 road win at Alabama A&M and played exactly the way Auburn fans have to hope he plays (well, minus the 5 turnovers). 3-for-4 from deep, 5-for-7 overall, 13 points, all in just 17 minutes. Auburn’s already shown that no one else is going to hit the three-ball consistently enough to keep the floor spaced, so that Waller is not only back on the court but might already have his stroke back is terrific news.
Because over the past couple of weeks we’ve seen what Auburn is going to be without Waller, and the results haven’t been pretty. That early road loss at what looks to me like an underrated Missouri St. team I could live with, but the wire-to-wire blowout loss on a neutral court at the hands of Central Florida (who followed that up with a 27-point loss to the same Niagara team Auburn defeated in the season opener) in response? The last-second 60-58 loss to an N.C. State team that’s expected to occupy the ACC basement as the Tigers shoot 5-of-15–5-of-15!!!–from the free throw stripe? Oof.
The bottom line is that even after thumping Alabama A&M and High Point to get back over .500, that’s the kind of three-game losing streak that NCAA Tournament teams just don’t generally suffer. With only one more shot (at Florida St.) at accomplishing anything worthwhile before the SEC schedule kicks in, Auburn is already well behind the Tourney eight-ball and will once again need a huge SEC season just to work themselves into the bubble discussion. This season might not be NCAAs or bust for Jeff Lebo, but he’d better hope it’s not, because right now the needle is inching closer to “bust.”
That’s not to say, however, that the addition of Waller might not result in some big things for Auburn once the calendar flips, because there’s some solid building blocks to build on here, like …
Lucas Hargrove. The senior’s gone off for 39 points and 20 rebounds the last two games, and even more impressively has done it on just 22 shots. (He’s hit 16 of them.) Auburn will need more of the same going forward and might need even more from Hargrove on the glass–defensive rebounding was a major, major problem in the N.C. State game–but it’s a start.
The defense. It’s not consistent just yet, or even close–Central Florida averaged a whopping 1.11 points-per-possession–but Auburn’s putting it together in spurts, holding N.C. State to just 26 percent shooting from 3 and 33 percent overall. (The Wolfpack still managed .94 points-per-possession thanks to the rebounding victories I mentioned, but FG defense is the better indicator going forward.) Clamping down on High Point and AAMU isn’t anything to get too excited about, but opposing PPP marks of .7 and .68 is still the kind of thing you want to see.
The 1.05 given up to IUPUI was much less encouraging; that was the very rare game Auburn won on the offensive end, and they won it largely thanks to …
Frankie Sullivan. After a dreadful start to the season, the light seems to be coming on for Auburn’s sophomore guard: he hit for 20 points on just 10 shots in the aforementioned win over the Jaguars, then nearly won the N.C. State game singlehandedly, accounting for 12 of Auburn’s 58 on 6-of-11 three-point shooting. Sullivan also hit 27 consecutive free throws to start the season, setting a new Auburn record; he’s the only thing keeping the Tigers’ 226th-ranked FT shooting even partly afloat.
If Sullivan can keep anything like this up and Waller returns to full strength, Auburn’s three-guard lineup should cause some real headaches for opponents.
Of course, for every positive, there’s also a flurry of negatives. DeWayne Reed is seriously struggling: he’s shooting 37 percent for the season, bottoming out in a 2-for-10 performance vs. AAMU, and is currently sporting a 26-to-25 assist-to-turnover ratio for the year. Auburn’s got to have more from their senior point guard; I mean, he’s the senior point guard. The non-Hargrove sections of the frontcourt have had their moments (mostly via freshman Earnest Ross and the occasional solid outing from center Brendan Knox) but are still mostly as anonymous as expected offensively, and have had some truly terrible nights rebounding the basketball. (Auburn’s recovered only 49.2 percent of all missed shots, the 262nd-best mark in the country to date.) And because we are talking about the Auburn men’s basketball team here, there’s been a major injury, this one to promising swingman Kenny Gabriel.
So, yeah, I’m not sure what to tell you. If Waller’s OK there’s still hope for a good season, for some big moments in Beard-Eaves’ swansong, for Lebo to enter 2010-2011 on relatively stable footing. But already, with that hideous three-losses-in-four-games stretch in the books and Reed flailing, a repeat of the successes of ’08-’09 seem awful unlikely as we sit here today. What that might mean for Lebo, we’ll have to just wait and see.
Women: Steady as she goes
The Lady Tigers are 5-3 after KeKe Carrier went off for 28 and 13 in a 76-63 win over North Carolina A&T last night. To date the season has pretty much played out as you might expect for Nell Fortner’s inexperienced bunch: they haven’t slipped up against any of the lesser lights on the schedule, but they also don’t appear to have the firepower to stay with the nation’s upper-echelon teams. Temple routed Auburn by 14 up in Philly, Texas A&M came away from Beard-Eaves with a 20-point victory, and No. 12 Florida St. pulled away for an 82-67 win in Tallahassee Nov. 27.
But hey, the very fact that the ‘Noles had to pull away–after Auburn led by as many as 9 in the first half–was a sign of progress. Freshman Nicolle Thomas scored 27 that game and has emerged as Auburn’s second scoring (and three-point shooting) option alongside Alli Smalley. If Carrier can learn how to stay out of foul trouble and provide some semblance of a presence in the post, Auburn should at least stay competitive in what pretty clearly looks like a rebuilding season for Fortner and Co.
Photo by Van Emst.
Tournament selections come from conference play, so as long as we don’t lost to TOO many teams we’re supposed to beat, it’s all gravy from now til January.
The most frustrating part about last season was the free-throw shooting. It looked better against Niagara, but fell off since then. Maybe they’ll figure it out.
Tournament or no tournament, we better be having a new coach next year to go with the new arena.
I agree with AubOrange on Lebo tenure. It’d be beyond cruel for Auburn to can Lebo before the new area’s ready. That guy’s had the worst luck in the SEC AND the worst facilities. Auburn should give him a medal.
Eh, I’m about ready for the Lebo era to end. His crowning achievement in his 5 years on the Plains is…a trip to the NIT. His only trip to postseason basketball. He doesn’t really have any offensive strategy other than “hope your guys are hitting their threes.” The only positive everyone says about him is that his players play hard for him, but that’s just not enough. It was a mistake when we hired him and it’s been a mistake keeping him around since.
AE, I’m assuming you mean you DISagree with AubOrange.
I’m somewhere between you guys, meaning that I want to see how the rest of the season plays out before passing any final judgments. I’m inclined to give Lebo a shot at the new building and see what happens, but if we get to the end of this season and we’re right back to square one, I’m not of the opinion that Lebo won’t have had his chance. There are other tough coaching situations in this league–is recruiting to Auburn really tougher than to Starkville?–and other coaches who have done more with them than Lebo’s done with his. We’ll see.
The “powers to be” should decide if Auburn is going to be a basketball power or just satisfied to be competitive. With Lebo, they can be competitive in the lower tier of the SEC but if your really an Auburn fan and like SEC basketball, don’t expect much more than what we are getting. Wishful thinking is that North Carolina might come to help AU open their new arena next year. After watching NC on TV last night, inviting NC would be such an embarassment.
But we all agree that Lebo consistently took 2nd tier talent and whipped Gottfried ‘s Tide teams, right? That gotta say something.
You guys got it all wrong! I was going to school during the Chris Porter Marquis era and have been a season ticket holder since(just so i could say so). Lebo has had little talent and I mean that literally. He inherited shit from Ellis especially afterr everyone left(Marco Killingsworth, Brandon Robinson, Toney Douglas, Lewis Monroe, Dwayne Curtis) . We had Kyle Davis and Ronnie LeMelle for one year then it was just nothing. The biggest guy was 6-7 for 2 years. Then he recruited Barret, Vot, Dollard and Tez, and improved his record every year with them(Dollard flaked out and Vot missed med redshirt by 7 minutes or he would be playing this year). His recruting classes are getting better and better, last year was good, this year- even better. They will not and should not fire Lebo, he has done the best he could with the talent hes had and with shit facilities.
His only weakness is recruiting and going from the worst facilities in the SEC to maybe the best and back to back much improved recruiting clases that will change now as well. We will be back to the sweet 16 in the 2011-2012 season. Mark my word.
AUB99, you’ve got some good points there. Like I said, I’m inclined to give Lebo another year provided we don’t see wholesale collapse … but I also worry that the SEC season will be so ugly that Auburn won’t have a choice. Nothing to do right now but wait, I tihnk.
Unfortunately I do believe we will not improve upon our record from last year, at best we match it, We have tons of young talent this year and more coming in next. No seniors next year, which means a great 2011-2012-give Lebo till then , IF HE DOESNT TURN THIS THING AROUND LIKE CLIFF IN 98 i will be the first to cry for his firing.
While i have your ear-I started reading thIs blog at the beg of the football season and have loved it-daily viewing. I turned a few friends onto it as well. Do you cover basketball like you do football? What can I expect as a huge fan of the blog?!
Thanks
T
AUB99, thanks. Glad you like the site.
I’m a big college hoops fan (though aside from Auburn I actually prefer watching/following the mid-major level … it’s a long story) and there’ll be plenty of Auburn hoops coverage now that football season is (mostly) over. Do stick around.
AUB99, are you seriously suggesting that we give the guy seven years just to make the tournament? What happens after he “rebuilds” from that? Do we give him another seven years to get there again?
There’s nothing more frustrating to me in sports than people settling for mediocrity. There’s always a better coach out there, and there always will be.
We’ve been “rebuilding” for five years. Can we start moving now? In the “conference contender” direction, please?
I can think of a lot more frustrating things than “setteling”, like bad sportsmanship, cheating, drug use, thuggery, apathy, etc. In Lebo’s term, we’ve had none of that crap. I’m willing to “settle” for one more year to let the man coach in the facility he helped build.
Dude, believe me I understand what your saying, it hurts going to Beard Eaves and seeing, feeling hearing whats become of the program. I want the magic back in that building as much as any, its not there. But guess what, its not Lebos fault. Ellis left the program in shambles as far as recrutingand standards, Beard Eaves is a joke, their practice facility is an even bigger joke-they practice in whats called “The Hotbox” have you ever played in the hotbox? I have its like playing in a classroom, the basketball players workout facility is shit-its all the old equipment form the football facility…its not Lebos fault. He has won games with undersized below average talent by adjusting his schemes to fit the personel he could put on the floor. Its not his fault dude. He deserves till 2012 when his best recruiting class can mature. did not proof read sorry if typos
Well we were 10-0 against Troy all time… until tonight. That’s a total embarrassment, and nothing less.
I don’t get it. What’s Lebo going to do once he gets these recruits? We bring the ball upcourt without a plan literally almost half the time. For halfcourt defense we play some random zone for the first 10 seconds of the shotclock and then switch to man-to-man, and it’s no secret to opposing teams. Are his schemes going to magically get better?
And Elvis, are you really trying to say that winning players exhibit “bad sportsmanship, cheating, drug use, thuggery, apathy, etc.”? Seriously dude? Seriously??