Big opportunity tomorrow, as our road games go this is one of the most winnable. Like LSU, Auburn sucks on defense which is good for us. Little big of a bad break as Auburn starts school earlier than A&M, they start on Wednesday where we don't start until next Monday so they'll probably have a good crowd at this one.

One huge advantage for them is they've played a vastly tougher schedule than we have. Also one of Auburn's big strengths is their offense rebounding percentage which is right at 40%.

This is going to be tough, but it wouldn't be an absolutely huge upset like some of our other road games, I imagine the spread will be something like Auburn by 5-ish if it's in line with the Torvik projection. That would put with Texas, Oklahoma and maybe LSU as our most winnable road games.

It would be a huge W for the Ags. Get some positive momentum going early in conference play.

One thing that's pretty wild is the flip in the defensive efficiency of the entire conference.

Last year the leagued ended the season with four top 10 and six more top 50 defenses (Top Ten: Tennessee, Florida, Auburn, us; Top 20: Arkansas; and Ole Miss, Alabama, Georgia, State and South Carolina were also in the top 50)

As of today the league has no top ten defenses, three top 20 (14 - Florida, 16 - Tennessee, 14 - Vandy) one more in the top 30 (27 - Kentucky) and two more just inside the top 50 (45 - Georgia, 46 - Arkansas)

The next best defense per KenPom after those six is us at #54!

Last year's WORST defensive team in the SEC was Vandy at #79. Currently six teams are worse than that (#122 - Oklahoma, #120 - Mizzou, #109 - Texas, #91 - South Carolina, #89 - Auburn, #80 - Mississippi State)

Those numbers will come down a bit in league play which tends to be more defensive anyway as the season goes on, but still, at this point those are wild numbers.

We will need to shoot much better than we did versus LSU. Maybe LSU's defense "sucks" but they held the Ags to their 3rd lowest point total on the year (75). UCF (74) and OSU (63) were the only lower offensive outputs.

It was also one of our slowest games of the year though tempo wise. Pitt and Montana were the only two games with fewer possessions. But yeah, to win anyway shooting 8/28 from 3 was nice. I don't imagine that's going to happen often in SEC play.

I also think it was a hard adjustment after playing a few crappy teams in a row. LSU's defense is bad for a power conference team but it was still the only halfway decent one we'd seen since SMU back on December 7th (also not a particularly good defensive team.)

I note that because I think the teams we're in real trouble against are the teams that defend at a high level, especially if they have size in the interior. Like I'm going to be surprised if we don't get absolutely killed by Florida and Tennessee.

Everyone thinks Bucky Ball, they think explosive 3 point shooting team, high powered offense. One thing about it also it's pesky defense and I think we're settling into that style. Especially if we're not talented enough to beat guys one on one, it's gonna require scrappy team defense and I think we're improving in that area

Yeah this is a good opportunity for us but it's an absolutely huge game for Auburn which is going to make it tough.

This is the start of a really important stretch of games for Auburn where they need to post some W's because they have an absolutely brutal stretch that starts toward the end of the month where they're going to be significant dogs in five out of six consecutive games.

They do have three decent wins in their pocket already against Oregon, St. John's and N.C. State but I'm not sure how well any of those wins are going to hold up. Especially St. John's.

But it's hard to put together a tougher stretch in the SEC this year than what Auburn starts on the 24th. At Florida, Texas (this is the one game they'll be favored), at Tennessee, Alabama, Vandy, at Arkansas.

We have to be horrible so Auburn doesn't want Bucky. Long game.

bobinator said:

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Or we need Auburn to just go ahead and be awful so they move on from Pearl now before Bucky really lights the world on fire.

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Yes!!!

Bucky will coach in final 4's imo. He still needs seasoning, but his system will appeal to lots of players and it's a difficult prep. Especially in tournament basketball

Auburn favored by 6.5?

Winnable …yes but we need to shoot 3's at a much better clip than we did Saturday which to me means we have to really move the ball sharply and not turn it over .

Pettiford scares the hell out of me too. He could drop 40 in any game if he gets hot. Going from last year , haven't watched Auburn yet this year.