This Week In Auburn Hoops: Week 8

What just happened

This is going to be a short article this week, Good people of Auburn. I left my computer at my brother’s house and am across the country visiting my wife’s family in South Carolina for the next few days. I am writing this on my phone, with limited internet, and no access to my stat pages I've meticulously curated ver the course of the season.

This article is the equivalent of a three-pointer early in the shot clock, but that's gotten Auburn to a 10-2 record so far, so it can't be all that bad!

Auburn beat UConn AND OU this past week. Toss in the Mercer win, and you have three straight wins over teams who have been in the tournament much more recently than our Tigers.

The case can be made that this was the best three game non-conference stretch in Auburn basketball since Chris Porter was dunking on everyone in sight. Take the UConn win alone. When was the last time Auburn went on the road against one of the blue bloods and came out with a win? That school has more national championships than Auburn has Sweet 16 appearances. I know they are in a “down year” but those schools don't recruit scrubs. Auburn limited its mistakes to 10 turnovers in part because Jared Harper was brilliant and TJ Dunans played exactly the way Auburn needed him to play. Dunans had a great week of basketball.

Auburn’s rebounding has been bad all year, but it was better than UConn. If the Huskies shot the ball and missed, there was as good a chance of Danjel Purifoy grabbing the rebound as any Huskie. He had 13 defensive rebounds to UConn’s 13 offensive rebound. That's amazing work on the glass. That takes discipline and boxing out and guts.

Conference play starts this week. Historically 20 wins has been the mark of a dream season and Auburn is half way there before SEC play even begins.

Ill post again soon, with more stats and info about this team. When conference play starts, I will try to sling a bit more content your way.

Go out there and take this New Year like TJ Dunans ripping a rim against OU. We should all live life like that.

Until next week,

War Eagle and Get Buckets

from College and Magnolia http://bit.ly/2ig7s96
via IFTTT