Coach Bruce Pearl’s team traveled to California to take on the USC Trojans in their building. Auburn came into the game 9-1 with USC at 8-3. It was a hard fought contest with Auburn leading early. The Trojans would gain momentum as the Tigers struggled with foul trouble. Auburn had the ball down 3 with three seconds left, but ultimately came up short as KD Johnson missed a long jumper. Here are a few takeaways from tonights game.
Johni Broome and Tre Donaldson flashed their potential
Broome started off the game 6-7 with 14 points. He has been inconsistent lately. Broome has often been amazing or confusingly bad. Tonight he looked great. He also had 6 rebounds and even hit a 3 pointer. This is who Auburn needs Broome to be for them to be successful this season. Tre Donaldson also had a great night. He hit two of his four 3 pointers and scored 12 points. This was especially important on a night starting point guard Wendell Green Jr. struggled scoring only 2. Freshman Chance Westry and Yohan Traore have struggled lately and Auburn has been looking for a spark. Maybe Donaldson can be that spark for the Tigers.
Officiating was lopsided tonight for the home team
Auburn was called for around twice as many fouls as the Trojans tonight. Coach Bruce Pearl and company were not happy throughout the game with the officials. Sometimes playing in out of conference games is tough for this reason. The Tigers also turned the ball over 23 times and gained some experience playing in hostile road environments.
This team is becoming the scrappy underdog again
Auburn began the season ranked in the top 15. They had a great year last year as well as a good offseason. They were the media darlings, and they were shown respect in the polls to start the season. This is not how Auburn thrives. The identity of recent great Auburn teams has been proving others wrong. That’s hard to do when you’re favored in every game. These losses are changing that. Every loss is knocking this team down a peg and out of the spotlight back into the darkness and obscurity from which they will have to climb. This is a good thing. This team needs to find themselves, individually and collectively. They need to decide who they are and who they want to be. Every hero’s journey involves conflict and adversity. Hard times are an important part of growth. We started to see some of that underdog fight back in this team tonight. It didn’t result in a victory, but we will see how this team responds and if the return of the underdog mantra can help Auburn develop into a contender.
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