The Auburn basketball team managed to battle back to another home win on Saturday afternoon over the Georgia Bulldogs. Just as they did against Arkansas last week, the Tigers struggled on offense on their home turf in the Jungle, and it took Johni Broome putting the team on his back to get Auburn across the finish line with the win.
Denver Jones knocked down 17 points, and Chad Baker-Mazara and Miles Kelly added 11 points a piece. But Johni Broome was far and away the leading scorer with a whopping 31 points and 14 rebounds, adding yet another double-double to his resume.
Despite shooting the ball terribly in the first half, Auburn basketball managed to turn things around in the second half and ended the game with an 82-70 victory over the Dawgs. Here is what head coach Burce Pearl and his team had to say about the dub.
Pearl on Broome's performance in the game, per Auburn Undercover:
"That's why he's Player of the Year. Unbelievable poise. He plays at a great pace offensively and the fact that he's patient, calculating and the fact that he attacked the rim like he did in this game so much.
"I mean, that was the biggest difference at the end of the day. We had 4 and they didn't. And 4 played pretty good tonight."
Pearl on Georgia's zone coverage, per Auburn Rivals:
“Great, great, great game-planning. They played a little 3-2 zone, 1-2-2 zone. Hadn’t played it hardly all year. I told Coach White I thought that was a great call because it caught us off guard and we managed to find a few things that we could do that was good to score 80 points.”
Miles Kelly and the importance of the Tigers' rebounding, per AL.com:
“It’s super important. Offensive rebounding gives us second-chance points. I mean, we’ve got guys like Johni, Dylan, Chaney [Johnson] crashing the glass... [Chris Moore], [Hudson] crashing the glass every time. So, it just gives us another opportunity on offense when we’re struggling from beyond the arc.”
The Tigers return to action on Wednesday when they host Ole Miss in Neville Arena.