Oklahoma wasn’t in No. 1 Auburn basketball’s class. The question now is: Is anyone? | Cole
AUBURN — Two months. Eight-plus weeks. Sixty-two days. One-thousand-four-hundred-eighty-eight hours. That’s nearly 90,000 minutes, and more than 5 million seconds.
However it’s sliced, it’s the length of time since Auburn basketball has lost a game.
Tuesday marked exactly two months since the Tigers’ latest defeat, which came by two possessions to No. 2 Duke, in Cameron Indoor Stadium, no less. On the anniversary of defeat, Auburn picked up another victory with ease, cruising past Oklahoma for a 98-70 win.
In the time since the Duke loss, the Tigers have won 14 straight. They’ve beaten five ranked squads, bringing their season total to a program-record eight, and they’ve won all nine of their games against the SEC; a league which has all 16 teams in the KenPom top 100. Of Auburn’s 14 wins, nine of them have come against KenPom top-50 squads.
For the Blue Devils? It’s been easier. They haven’t played a ranked opponent since hosting Auburn, and they’ve played just four KenPom top-50 teams. But trust the resume and analytical comparisons at your own discretion. Duke holds the head-to-head advantage, after all.
Instead, try using Auburn’s performance against Oklahoma — winners in three of its past four — as a deciding factor.
The Tigers logged their second-straight game in which they dropped 90 points on a league opponent in the Oklahoma manhandling. They also recorded their largest margin of victory in SEC play. For another apt summation of the evening, you could turn to the losing the coach.
“They’re long, and they play really hard,” Oklahoma coach Porter Moser said. “They play extremely hard and long. They’re competitive defensively and physical defensively. And if you do get by them, they don’t stop.”
The latest scoring outputs of Auburn are certainly eye-popping. But they weren’t the story of the night to Bruce Pearl, who pointed out what the Tigers did to the Sooners and their top-20 offense. That included: A season-low field goal percentage for the Sooners; Three fast-break points for an Oklahoma offense that’s top-30 nationally in such a mark; Its leading scorers, Jeremiah Fears and Jalon Moore, combining for 21 points and doing so while shooting 30% from the field.
Like any Pearl-led team, offensive success be darned, these Tigers clearly pride themselves on defense and have all season, posting top-30 marks nationally in field goal and 3-point percentage. As for the offense, Tuesday served as another reminder of what these Tigers are capable of, largely evidenced by their largest point total in SEC play coming in unorthodox fashion.
Johni Broome did what Johni Broome does, matching a team-high with 15 points. But the National Player of the Year frontrunner, who’s averaging a double-double, saw his offense go uncharacteristically quiet down the stretch. As he logged just two second-half points, Auburn showed its offense prowess, much like it did when going undefeated without Broome for a pair of wins over ranked teams last month.
