The effort's appreciated all the same, Tay.
Please, please stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Any of these ones before.
– Last night Auburn lost to Ole Miss by 10 points, a score of 85-75.
– Auburn led by 12 points at halftime, 34-22. In the second half they allowed Ole Miss to shoot better than 65 percent and score 63 points. A “fun” stat from reader John B.: “Before Ole Miss’s final possession tonight, at which point they were up ten with a fifteen-second shot-clock-game-clock differential and Auburn had waived the white flag by not fouling, the Rebels had scored on 23 of 24 possessions. I went through the [expletive deleted] play-by-play on ESPN, which was, if you can believe it, even more painful than watching the last eight minutes of the that game. ”
– Auburn committed 25 fouls for the game and sent the Rebels to the line for 37 free throws.
– Jeff Lebo gave 7 bench players a combined 49 minutes, or, basically, a quarter of all available minutes. Those 7 players combined to go 2-for-14 and score a total of 7 points.
– For the game, Auburn shot 9-for-30 from inside the arc, 32 percent. Ole Miss, however, shot 50 percent as Auburn recorded a total of two blocks.
– Auburn had one player–Tay Waller–shoot 8-of-11 from three and score 29 points on only 12 shots. All other Auburn players combined to shoot 27 percent.
It’s all there, folks. The horrible offensive imbalance, the foul-first-foul-second defensive philosophy, the second-half collapse, the lack of anyone on the bench not named Brendon Knox to help in any noticeable fashion. They skipped the terrible three-point defense and poor foul shooting, but as for the rest of it … I mean, this is Auburn this year. The Georgia and Arkansas wins were nice, the OT losses in Fayetteville and Starkville bad luck. But this is the team. This is the mean to which they regress.
And so unless they somehow become some other team over these next three games, and arrive in Nashville ready to win two more, they won’t even finish with so much as a .500 record. I wouldn’t totally rule out that transformation, since I can’t bring myself to be that defeatist. But the odds are long, long, long.
Other stuff:
– Looking at NITology, Auburn’s so far out of the field at this point, it’s possible they’ll have to sweep their remaining three regular season games and then rip off three wins at the SEC tournament. Even a five-game streak and a final record of 18-16 might not be enough when you consider that Alabama looks to be barely in the field themselves, and the Tide have the same SEC record and a much stronger nonconference resume. Maybe it would be. But maybe it wouldn’t. Anything worse than 18-16 won’t make it, that much
I don’t know why I’m even discussing something as unlikely as a five-game winning streak, but there it is. For the record: if the target is a winning season, Auburn’s minimum is 3-0/1-1 or 2-1/3-1, regular season/SEC tourney. (So they’ve got to sweep the regular season, basically. You knew that.) To get to .500, it’s 3-0/0-1, or 2-1/2-1.
– Man, what’s suddenly gotten into Dewayne Reed’s free throw stroke? He went 7-of-7 last night and is now 26-of-27 in his last five games. Better late than never, I suppose.
– 10 of Auburn’s 13 SEC opponents to date have scored 78 or more points. Honestly, how the hell are you supposed to win college basketball games giving up 80 points every time out?
– Whatever.
Photo by Van Emst.
Jerry, I feel your pain. Every time I start to give Lebo a chance and develop a “give him one more year” attitude, the team goes out and lays an egg.I don’t know if you’ve done so, but take the time to review Lebo’s incoming recruiting class…some rank it as high as fourth in the nation. A true point guard is on his way, along with some versatile 6-5 and 6-6 guys that we’ve been yearning for. I WANT Lebo to be the guy, but that constantly conflicts with whether I think he IS the guy to lead AU back to being the team that is respectable. So, do we fire Lebo and risk losing some of these top tier recruits??? Or, do we suffer through another year of frustrating losses like last night??? I will say this to all those who are comparing the two…Lebo is not Tuberville. Lebo is bringing in his best class to date, and all signs point to him giving every ounce to this program. Can’t say the same for Tuberville his last few years, huh? As frustrating as this damn season is, I’d lean towards giving Lebo the opportunity to turn things around. Let’s see what happens next year. What’s the worst that could happen….let me take that back!!! War Eagle anyways and always!
A-Day: T-minus 51 days.
There is nothing more frustrating that watching a team that is consistently up double figures end up losing game after game. Oh wait, there is….watching Reed make ridiculous 4 on 1 drives and then fall to the floor and yell for a foul. *Sigh* Hope all is well, Jerry!
Before we place too much hope on the incoming recruits someone should check their academic situations. Seems we usually lose quite a few of our best recruits…perhaps the reason we get them is because everyone else knows they won’t qualify. As for the game, the last half of the second half was hard to believe….missed about every shot we took combined with lax defense. Lebo is a nice guy and seems to be running a clean program but is just not a good game-time coach.
WBE, I was surprised when I saw that the title wasn’t; “Hoops Report: Goodbye Lebo”…
All I ask is: to everyone else going to the tourney in Nashville; when you’re selling your tickets after Auburn’s loss, please, PLEASE, make those Kentucky fans pay double what you did.
Snap, you are right Lebo is not Tuberville. Tubby had given us our greatest season in the program’s history, a 7-3 record over Bama, and about 6 division titles (ties counted). Tubs still deserved another year on paper (the majority of his staff did not)…I’m not shedding any tears with what we have now (especially Chiz’s staff – wow, love those guys). Lebo walked into a mess no joke…but he’s had 6 years to make something happen. I was in school during when N’dye, Doc, and Porter was there…we rolled Toomer’s for B-ball games. Rushing the floor after beating UK on Super Tuesday, and after clinching the SECOND title rank right up there with beating #1 Florida in the rain as my favorite AU sports memories while in School. Auburn fans will come out if we have team that wins some games and constistantly makes a run at the dance. It’s time to move on – Lebo is not the guy.
Jerry..have you checked out what our former coach is doing at Coastal Carolina? Did Ellis HAVE to be fired? Did we UPGRADE? I said it then, and say it now…Cliff Ellis should still be the Coach at Auburn. Thoughts?
You guys are welcome to want Ellis back, but I personally don’t want a thing to do with him. His players never graduated, he landed us on probation, he built the program around transfers and JUCOs that never gave a crap about Auburn. It’s hard to find a basketball coach that doesn’t have some level of skeeze attached to him (another point in Lebo’s favor), but Ellis was entirely too skeezy to be the right coach for Auburn, if you ask me.