Despite shaky moments in the first half, No. 1 Auburn defeated in-state foe No. 16 Alabama State 83-63 in its opening round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament inside of Rupp Arena. Take a look inside of the winning locker room as players and coaches provide their thoughts on the Tigers’ Round of 64 win.
Auburn HC Bruce Pearl:
Opening Statement
“First of all, give Alabama State credit for being here and having the run like they did. I thought we lacked some effort and energy, some focus. Thank God Miles Kelly didn't. We definitely had a couple of guys really step up. The things that, let's just say, Miles got or Chaney Johnson got were sort of things you would expect them to get — things we had worked for and things we had seen all season long. But we need to play better, and that was not one of our better efforts.”
Early look at Creighton
“Man, they're really good. They're really smart. Really old. Really big. Really tough. We're gonna have to play a lot better to beat them.”
Lack of energy recently
“We're not playing as well as we were a month ago. It's not a good time to be in that situation. Can we get it turned around and beat a really good Creighton team? Yeah, we can.”
G Miles Kelly:
Stepping up in the NCAA Tournament
“I’m a shot maker. At the end of the day, my teammates did a great job finding me. All I had to do was knock down the shots.”
On playing well in Rupp Arena
“I love Rupp Arena. I love these rims. All they had to do was find me, give me good looks and I was going to knock the shot down.”
Thoughts on upcoming matchup with Creighton
“I’m super fired up. We’re coming in locked in. We’re going to watch this film from today’s game and Creighton’s game against Louisville, and get ready for Saturday.”
F/C Johni Broome:
Thoughts on today’s win
“It was a good game for us to kind of grind it out with a little bit of adversity, kind of get the wrinkles out on the first game in about five or six days. It’s good to play a team like that to kind of get the wrinkles out.”
On Chaney’s bounce back game
“It means a lot. We’ve been looking for that version of Chaney lately. He showed us that in the beginning of the year and throughout the course of the year. He kind of went through a little slump but now he’s back. It just shows how good this team can be when he’s doing that.
On Miles Kelly’s performance
“He’s a dog. When the lights get bright, he shows up.”
PF Chaney Johnson:
On team’s effort
“I mean, it is March. I mean, regardless of who you play, every team is going to bring it. Alabama State's a well-coached team. They have some good guards, some good bigs, so they didn't make it easy for us and they kind of got a little close, but Miles hit that big three, Johni and one kind of gave us that little that we needed. But I feel like honestly we can do a lot better than what we played today and if we want to win against the big dogs, we're going to have to continue playing with high energy and high effort.”
On Miles Kelly being a spark
“Man, it did a lot. It gave us the energy and the spark that we needed. I mean, we started decent, got up a little bit, they came back on their run and basketball is the game of runs. So that kind of started our running a little bit and it gave us the spark that we needed and kept it up throughout the entire game.”
C Dylan Cardwell:
On what changed in the second half
“We really just started guarding. We gave up nine points in the first nine minutes of the second half and that’s all it is. We have to guard from here on out.”
Early thoughts on Creighton
“They’re big.”
On taking too many 3-pointers
“I think we relied on the 3-pointer too much. We can’t shoot 30 something threes against a team that’s tallest player on the court at one time was 6-foot-9. The SEC is way bigger than them. We have to take advantage of it. We just didn’t need to jack up as many of those threes in my opinion.”
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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
