“McLemore made a 3-point shot, and then it kind of snowballed from there."
That was Arkansas’ head coach Mike Anderson on Auburn’s first shot of the game before Auburn’s offense exploded to a 79-56 win against the Razorbacks.
“That’s a really great win for our program,” head coach Bruce Pearl said. “We have such respect for Arkansas and the basketball programs history in the SEC. We’ve kind of evened it up the last three years, which is hard to do against them. I’m very pleased. We got off to a very good start and made shots. It was a good dominating effort against a good team in the SEC, so it should be a good thing to build on.”
Auburn came out firing out of the gates to take a 9-0 lead within the first two minutes of game time after knocking down three of its first four attempts from three. And it only got worse from there.
The Tiger offense was led by a 3-point barrage not seen since the first game of the season against South Alabama, knocking down 17 3-pointers against a lost Arkansas defense.
Seventeen threes is tied for highest under Pearl in a SEC contest while at Auburn. During the first half beatdown, Auburn went on two separate 13-2 runs to push the lead to 45-20 at the break.
“We just play our gameplan,” Anfernee McLemore said. “We shoot a lot, and hopefully we make a lot. I feel like anybody on the court can make a three, one through five, honestly. I think that really gives everybody a lot of freedom on the court. If you’re open, you can take a shot.”
The matchup to watch coming into this game was the 3-point shootout between the top two sharpshooters of the SEC, Bryce Brown and Isaiah Joe.
Brown was the more efficient of the two, hitting five of his eight 3-point attempts for 62 percent, while Joe only shot 28 percent on 4-of-14 shooting from downtown.
Joe’s poor performance speaks to the defensive intensity the Tigers have brought since Mississippi State scored a season-high 92 on Auburn earlier this season.
“Obviously, we’ve done well since Mississippi State where we gave up a bazillion gazillion points,” Pearl said. “I think tonight we really locked in defensively and had great effort defensively and really rotated quickly on defense, that has been a key for us playing better basketball right now.”
Arkansas leading scorer Daniel Gafford was held to only 10 points and five total shots. Auburn made a point of emphasis to stop the Arkansas big.
“Wes Flanigan, Chad Pruitt and their team just did a tremendous job scouting,” Pearl said. “We had a gameplan to front Daniel Gafford and help behind him, we did a good job of pressuring the ball."
“We were just trying to make it difficult, make it hard for [Gafford] to get a shot off, beat to the spot and just make sure he’s not living in the paint the whole time,” McLemore said.
Despite the 23-point blowout, Auburn was not perfect. The Tigers committed their second-most fouls on the season – one shy of the 25 committed against Kentucky. They also had their second-most turnovers on the season with 20.
“I’m concerned about our turnovers and sloppy play,” Pearl said. We need to value possessions. You can’t turn it over 20 times and go on the road and win. We need to tighten up.”
Auburn’s season is coming to a close with just five games remaining on the schedule. The Tigers are sitting tied for sixth at 7-6 in the conference and 18-8 overall.
“We go to Rupp, Georgia, host Mississippi State, go to Alabama and then we have Tennessee at home,” Pearl said. “That’s a pretty next five games. We’re not going to be celebrating this, we’ll be trying to build on it.”
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