On a night where it took a while for the shots to fall from deep, the top-ranked Tigers continued to take care of business defeating Oklahoma 98-70 inside of Neville Arena to maintain an undefeated conference record and remain in sole possession to the SEC’s top spot.
Auburn matches the school record for best start to a season by reaching 21 wins in 22 games which ties the 1998-99 and 2021-22 seasons.
“I was really, really pleased with our effort, the fact that once again, we continue to take everyone seriously,” Bruce Pearl said of Auburn’s third quad-two game of the season.
Following Auburn’s conference-high 14 made shots from deep, the Tigers hit just two 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes of play. Miles Kelly hit the squad’s first attempt from beyond the arc to start the game and then Auburn made only one more 3-pointer the rest of the half – only taking two attempts from deep in the final 8:45 of the period.
Yet, the top-ranked Tigers finished 8-for-26 from deep and scored a conference-play high 98 points in the rout of Oklahoma.
“We did a great job, our guards. We got some big, long guards, and that goes a long way, was a factor tonight,” Pearl said.
Denver Jones shot a perfect 2-for-2 from deep in the second half, and didn’t miss a shot from the field in the entire game, to finish with 13 points – marking one of five players to finish in double figures for Auburn.
After entering the Ole Miss contest shooting 21.4% in SEC play, Jones has shot 7-for-10 from beyond the arc in the last two matchups.
“Denver was terrific. Denver didn't miss a shot, forcing one turnover. Just did such a great job. We had an advantage on the inside. I thought we obviously took a pretty good advantage of that,” Pearl said.
Johni Broome played just 26 minutes against the Sooners, his lowest of SEC play excluding his exit due to injury against South Carolina, and tied his senior-high in assists with six. Broome finished with 15 points, five rebounds and shot 7-of-9 from the charity stripe.
Auburn scored 54 points in the second half without Johni Broome attempting a shot from the field.
“The big key is Oklahoma is one of the better fashion breaking teams in the country. They only had three fast break points, so we did a great job of hunting the offensive glass and not getting ourselves beat too badly at all in transition,” Pearl said.
Entering tonight’s game Oklahoma ranked 18th nationally and first in the SEC with a 49.0 field goal percentage and finished 33% from the field – marking a season low for the Sooners.
The Sooners were the only SEC team with two players, Jalon Moore and Jeremiah Fears, averaging at least 16 points per game. No Oklahoma player scored more than 13.
“Oklahoma is obviously an outstanding three point shooting team. And you know, holding them to 7-for-23 was big,” Pearl said.
With students already beginning camping outside of Neville Arena, No. 1 Auburn will remain home and prepare for another top-10 matchup in a contest with the No. 6 Florida Gators on Saturday, Feb. 8 at 3 PM CST.
“The beautiful thing about the game is that it's not one size fits all, like Florida is a completely different team than Oklahoma, and so we're going to do some things differently, and we'll figure out what we need to do in our package against what they do, and I get it's all about matchups,” Pearl said.
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Patrick is a junior from Auburn, Alabama, double majoring in journalism and marketing. He started with The Plainsman in the fall of 2022.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @patrickabingham
