Auburn has a 7-foot crater smack dab in the middle of its lineup with the absence of injured center Austin Wiley.
During Auburn’s 80-77 loss against South Carolina, the team’s second straight loss without Wiley, Gamecocks senior forward Chris Silva feasted on Auburn’s undersized frontcourt.
On the season, Silva is averaging 11 points and six rebounds, but Tuesday it seemed that his stat sheet was swapped with one of Philadelphia 76ers’ center Joel Embiid. He had 32 points, 14 rebounds, four blocks and one missed shot. Outside of the game against Auburn, he’s had four 20 and 10 games in his entire four-year career at South Carolina.
It was clear from the start that Bruce Pearl’s Tigers were reeling without their starting center. Five minutes into the game the team had already committed nine fouls. All but one of those fouls came from a frontcourt player.
“We had our chances,” Pearl said. “This is the league we’re in. This is the grind that we have. Right now, we’re giving away a lot of size and it’s affecting us.”
Pearl was forced to compensate on defense by sending a press early and replacing his man defense with a zone. This worked for the first half, but Frank Martin let his team run havoc and establish dominance in the paint.
While Wiley hasn’t been producing at a superstar level, his vacancy in the rotation is obvious. With Silva having a career night, the Tigers looked to rely on their offense to give them enough firepower to escape the game with a win. However, none of the big men were able to contribute enough to support the two high-scoring guards.
Chuma Okeke continued his struggles shooting from the field with a 4-for-12 night, and Anfernee Mclemore hasn’t quite found his footing in the last two games. He is now a minus-23 on the court during the team’s losing streak, the worst plus/minus on the team in that stretch.
His negative impact comes in the limited minutes he does play because he can’t stay on the court. In both games, he and Horace Spencer have fouled out, effectively depleting Auburn’s already short supply of bigs.
If the Tigers want to hold on to their top-25 ranking and avoid a devastating midseason three-game losing streak, they have to find a solution at the five. By playing small for most of the game, all the energy they use pressing makes it hard to close out games. They need to expose opposing big men with their floor spacing on offense and force the other team to go small as well.
Against Mississippi State on Saturday, they should be able to recover seen as though their offense primarily revolves around guard Quinndary Weatherspoon. Look for Pearl to make adjustments to his frontline in hopes to find something that sticks.
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Bryce Johnson is a junior Journalism major at Auburn University from Santa Monica, CA. He works as a sports writer for The Plainsman.
- @Brycejohnson310
- bzj0020@auburn.edu
