Prior to the season, Auburn basketball fans could point to head coach Bruce Pearl’s talented backcourt as an area of strength for an up-and-coming program.
But a chain of unlucky circumstances has left Pearl with few options at guard in his perimeter-oriented offensive system.
Tahj Shamsid-Deen’s chronic shoulder issues reared its ugly head once again, requiring season-ending surgery. T.J. Dunans suffered a knee injury in December, and his season remains in jeopardy. Freshman Danjel Purifoy, heralded by Pearl as Auburn’s best NBA prospect, still has yet to be cleared academically.
The latest blow may be the most damaging though, as the recently suspended Kareem Canty decided to leave the university and enter the NBA Draft.
“Kareem accomplished a lot on the basketball court,” Pearl said. “I think the frustration of the season, of so many injuries and not winning, those combinations really took its toll on him as a competitor, which then led to the kind of conduct that was detrimental to the team, which put me in a position where he was suspended from the team indefinitely.”
Despite the recent suspension, Pearl insists that the junior guard made the decision to leave himself.
“Every player faces this situation at some point, and it being late in the year, he made this decision. But again, this was his decision. It was not something that we forced him to do, and again, we wish him well.”
Canty led the team in points (18.3) and assists (5.3) per game, and also led the SEC in three-point field goals per game at 3.3
Replacing the star guard is no easy task, as the Tigers are left with only three scholarship guards in Bryce Brown, TJ Lang and New Williams.
“There really aren’t any other options to speak of,” Pearl said. “It hasn’t really hurt us defensively, but it’s hurt us tremendously offensively because Kareem was not only a great scorer, but we relied on his play-making ability too without Dunans and Tahj Shamsid-Deen.”
With the perimeter shortage, Pearl recently converted senior
forward Cinmeon Bowers to point guard, which has yielded expectedly mixed
results.
“Now that I’m playing (Bowers) at point guard some, it’s really hard,” Pearl said. “It’s not that it’s hard on him offensively, remembering all of the plays and what to do at two different positions, but defensively covering guards is completely different coverage than inside players. Rather than being out there playing, he’s having to think. It’s not that he can’t do it, but that’s the challenge.”
No matter the circumstances, the season goes on, and up next for Pearl’s team is a home matchup with talented Vanderbilt squad that defeated the Tigers by 18 points in January.
“At this point we move forward. We try to find some offense against the best field goal percentage defensive team in the league, the best three-point field goal percentage defensive team in the country, and a team that blocked about a gazillion of our shots at Vanderbilt. I’m not sure what that number is, but it was a lot.”
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