A physical second half fueled Auburn basketball to a win in Huntsville, Alabama, as the Tigers defeated the UNC Asheville Bulldogs 87-62 in the Rocket City Classic at the Von Braun Center.
Following a slow start to the game where points seemed hard to come by, the Tigers stormed out to score 48 points in the second half, punctuated by junior Chad Baker-Mazara putting up 11 of his own.
“Chad Baker (Mazara) has got what we call ‘it,’” said Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl. “Can’t teach ‘it,’ he just has ‘it’ and a real feel, a real IQ. So he is a very effective player. We put the ball in his hands, we trust him to make plays. He’s long, and he can be a problem.”
After losing a road game to Appalachian State last week, the Tigers picked up their second straight win – a big momentum booster going into a crucial game against USC this weekend.
Pearl expects more from his team going into this marquee matchup.
“We avoided the letdown, the letdown of having a big game in Indiana on Saturday in Atlanta,” Pearl said. “We play USC at home on Sunday, and it could be one of the hottest tickets in Neville Arena history for a non-conference game. We’ll have to play better to win that one.”
Baker-Mazara hit three consecutive 3-pointers in the middle of the second half to keep the Tigers' extended lead hovering around the 20-point mark. This was a big boost in helping Auburn secure its wide margin of victory.
Following two more free throws by the junior, Aden Holloway hit a 3-pointer off of a Bulldog turnover, followed by a Jaylin Williams dunk, which forced UNC Asheville to call a timeout heading into the media break.
This succession of events got the large Auburn contingency fired up, knowing that the Tigers had almost surely secured a win.
“It was different than ‘The Jungle.’ Typically ‘The Jungle’ sort of gets us going,” Pearl said. “When we played well, when we played with energy, we turned them over, created some offense from our defense, I thought the crowd was great.”
The start of this game proved to be slow and very back-and-forth for both sides, with no points being scored until the 17:39 mark.
Forward Chris Moore opened up the scoring with a layup following a UNC Asheville turnover, followed by a Bulldog 3-pointer from Drew Pember. However, nobody went on a true run until after the first media timeout.
It was then that the runs started as Dylan Cardwell helped to control a seven-point run for the Tigers before Auburn surrendered five straight to the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs' final fight to keep it close with Auburn came shortly after when they claimed the lead thanks to the help of Jamon Battle and Caleb Burgess.
Auburn did not let that last for long though. Heading into the third media timeout at the 7:35 mark in the first half, the Tigers were building on a nine-point swing that gave them a seven-point lead.
Johni Broome had a huge part in this run, scoring three of his six total points in this stretch.
It was then Tre Donaldson’s turn to join the action, as he carried five straight points of his own, before giving way to Williams to score four heading into the break.
All of these runs lead to a 12-point Tiger lead heading into halftime.
That was all the momentum Auburn needed, with the Tigers pulling away by a large margin and not looking back as the second half played out.
Auburn’s scoring performance was led by Donaldson, who scored 15 in this game, followed by Baker-Mazara’s 11. 11 players caught points on the scoreboard tonight, as the Tigers hit 53.1% of their shots.
Pearl called the depth out for being the main reason for that success but hopes the players are okay with that.
“I think this team has the chance because it’s 10 or 11 guys, to have that kind of balance,” Pearl said. “The challenge is that Jaylin Williams is not going to have 24 and whatever he had every night. He’s not going to have the chance to be player of the week every week. Neither will Johni Broome, neither will Aden Holloway, neither will any of our guys. And so the question is, ‘Are they okay with it?’”
The free-throw performance was steady Wednesday night as well, as Auburn hit above its season average with an 80% success rate, converting 12 of its 15 tries.
The big struggle though seemed to come inside defensively as the Tigers gave up 28 points in the paint to the Bulldogs. Most of these points came from big man Drew Pember, who finished with 23 on the night to lead all scorers.
The Tigers will now head back to the Plains to face a tough non-conference opponent in USC on Sunday. That game is set to be on Dec. 17, where tip-off is set for noon, and will be broadcast on ESPN.
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Tyler Raley is a junior from Birmingham, Alabama, majoring in journalism.
Twitter: @traley34
