The College Loop Pregame Show: CAN AUBURN SCORE ON MISSISSIPPI STATE'S IN-YOUR-FACE DEFENSE?!

you are now listening to the war Rapport podcast Network what everybody welcome back to the C Loop pregame show as we are here to talk about Auburn taking on Mississippi State in the semi-finals of the SEC tournament and before we get right into I'll go ahead and do a little review of yesterday's games which if you're an Auburn fan yesterday was a almost a perfect day of basketball uh uh Tennessee loses Mississippi State which is who Auburn is playing today Auburn went beat South Carolina kind of reminiscent of how they beat them earlier on uh Alabama and Kentucky both lost to their opponents uh being Texas A&M and Florida issue looking forward Auburn has struggled against Buzz Williams before in this tournament Auburn has struggled against Florida several several times going back as far as you know this year where Albert had a very embarrassing loss But Not only was they they suffered an embarrassing loss to Florida this year they've also experienced an embarrassing loss to Missippi State and I'll get further into that in just a second before I do I want to do a little recap of two of the games from yesterday the two games that matter today uh so I start off with auburn taking on South Carolina beating them 86 to 55 and before this game I'm gonna get a little little fanboyish uh it was kind of funny knowing that South Carolina came out of the came out of the gate and I I'm trying remember if it was I think it was um uh Murray Bo I'm pretty sure I said Colin Murray Bo who uh the pregame uh whenever they were talking to him about the 40o loss earlier on in the year he said they're not in the jungle anymore in reference to Auburn saying it's gonna be a completely different ball game which it was it wasn't a 40-point win for Auburn it was a 31-point win for Auburn in the SEC tournament and what exactly played into Auburn winning this winning that game yesterday it was it was scoring uh and it was F getting hot uh ji Brun put up 18 points and 10 rebounds nice little double double from the double double King himself you also had Cheney Johnson and K Johnson uh put some put in some solid points Off the Bench put up 21 combined chainy with 11 and then ktie Johnson with 10 and then Off the Bench as well Dylan Cardwell Chris Moore uh putting up a solid seven and six Trey Donaldson put up five and Chris Chris Moore putting up six that was a very solid performance from Chris Moore he really really uh put in the I just put in the effort but those were tough earned to um I saw a lot of them were contested uh the first one he scored was was contested that I remember and then you go to the starting lineup CH Mazar put up eight points Denver Jones put up seven and then Aiden Holly put up nine points so finding scorers outside of Jaylen Williams who only put up three points in this game and of course we've seen uh with when Jay will had his injury ear early on the year Auburn responded by having one of their best wins of the Season without Jay will so we've seen this team as able to get P or play without Jay will and for him to get three points and Auburn still win by 31 is a massive massive uh step in the right direction especially for anybody who has doubted Auburn's ability to have that depth to have extra legs to have 10 better than your 10 uh mentality and I mean looking at the at at the scoring Auburn shot 47% from the three-point line shot um 49 from the field and the shot 52% from the free throw line which you don't want to see that that's probably the biggest down downfall of this game alurn only had five turnovers in this game defense defense defense and also did the same thing that did in South Carolina last time they passed the ball a lot 18 assists as a team as opposed to South Carolina's nine and of course six steals they also had eight blocks two South Carolina's two and four forc 10 turnovers from South Carolina fouled a good bit KY Johnson got a little got a little snippy uh got himself a tech uh but at this point we know this team is and you got you gotta calm down whenever you are when whenever you are in situations like this you can't take stupid techs because it's not going to work against Mississippi State uh a team that is known to um pick up after uh stupid mistakes from their other team which is what they did yesterday when they absolutely owned Tennessee and every single facet of this game South car Mississippi State never lost the lead from start to finish Missi state was in the driver's seat and that the same thing that's happened before against Auburn it's it's Josh Hub and it's and it's Chris Matthews uh Cameron Matthews sorry uh and it's just the same old same Tennessee did not shoot well 24% from the three-point line shot 30% from the field uh Dalton connect 14 points one and one rebound one assist uh had three turnovers 14 turnovers of the team but miss 15 but Missippi state has this weird thing called a defense that some teams don't aren't really known for playing uh very much uh but looking at Mississippi State as a whole this is a defense defensive Leed team this is a this is a defensive monster of a team this this team just does things that uh more offensive oriented teams don't focus on like that's why Tennessee struggled they they theyve and also I think tennessy might have just kind of been in passenger seat mode uh throughout the entire tournament uh because they're getting ready for March this is a team that's going to this is a potential final four El leite8 team in Tennessee so I'm not saying like oh they had a bad game this is they suck that's what I'm saying at all I'm saying they couldn't respond to Mississippi States effort on the defensive side of the ball they didn't know how to react to that and on the other side uh they just H they have Josh hubard who has given everyone issues this year Josh hubard currently with 17 points a game uh and scored 18 in this one you had cam ath put up 18 uh you had tolu Smith put up five five rebounds and eight points and then of course you had DJ Jeff put up SE put up eight words are hard eight points and seven rebounds and that's another thing uh Tennessee outrebounded Mississippi State they out assisted them they were very close in the steals uh they were very close in blocks they were very close in turnovers uh just nothing about this game was just domination outside of the shooting side where Missi State shot 25% better from the field they shot 6% better from the three-point line but they don't take a lot of Threes And they didn't shoot better it it's just Mississippi state has this weird feel to them because they're not a team that they they w w a four- game losing streak to end out the regular season and they they just took better shots and of course they did that without really substituting they they have four they had five guys their entire starting lineup or four guys out the starting lineup play 30 minutes or more you had 30 32 34 and 37 and Off the Bench you had uh 17 1584 and then you have one guy who has zero minutes but red but got on got on the got on the field uh got on the court but if you're splitting up these two games uh and looking at looking at the two teams that are playing you got to look in the season where Auburn Missy State already have played twice this year they split the series uh starting off Auburn had that very embarrassing loss to Mississippi State and Starkville at 65 to 58 uh where that that was before Auburn really figured out what they were what they wanted to be uh we didn't know a lot about what this team can be we were kind of just like H we don't want them to peek early uh that that was a game where dlan Cardwell fouled out early uh and I don't know if he four fouls foul but he got four fouls very early ji broom had to play 34 minutes of basketball and did he didn't have a double double he had 14 but 1472 uh had one and one steal and three blocks ji bre still had a great game uh Jay W had 10 points had a good game but outside of those two uh you just had 25% shooting from from the field I mean look this let me read these stats from the from that game that first game of these two days played Chris Moore 0 for two from the three Jay will 0 for four from the three Trey Donaldson 0 for one ktie Johnson 0 for two and Cheney Johnson 0 for one Chad Mazar one for three Aiden Holloway two for 47 and then Denver Jones only missed one and that was a game where Aiden Holloway and Denver Jones weren't starting because U of something that was going on I don't know if it was I don't know what it was I'm not going to try to specify anything AR shot 33% from the field uh shot pretty well from the from the free throw line a lot better than they did against South Carolina but they they just had no response to the defense of Mississippi State and it's really hard to do that because we've seen ji broom struggle whenever he has to play those extended minut so uh that that was a key factor um but 15 rebounds was the difference between Mississippi State and Auburn in the in that last in that first game and then looking at the next Game Auburn played in um in Neville Arena Auburn won by 15 78 to 63 and they had the same struggles uh defensively against you know Josh hubard who scored 17 that first game versus alurn and they scored 23 in their second game and Neville R also had tolu Smith put up 14 put up double and Chris Matthews put up 10 points I mean this this is a team that can go toe for toe with auburn and rebounds and they they' LED Auburn and rebounds in both games uh but that's one by six uh but assisting that that's is how Auburn uh made the offensive effort to tear up Miss State's defense get through it get to the paint get inside that get inside the free throw line so you can throw it to you know Janai broom so you can lob it up to Dylan Cardwell so you can give it to jayw will so you can give it to Chapman bizar that that is a factor of this game that is how Auburn wins this game against Miss State they spread the ball around they take smart shots because I I said so in the first game they played 33 from the field 25 from the three-point line second game 50 from the field 47 for the three-point line taking smarter shots spreading out the ball making that extra pass is how Auburn wins this ball game I don't think Auburn loses I think Auburn is the best team left in the tournament which that kind of just how that plays out with the seeds uh especially when the top three seeds lose on the same day but spreading the ball around taking smart shots playing funn midal basketball getting to the paint getting it to Janai broom getting it to Jay will let Jay will go off this game Jay will didn't have a great scoring night against South Carolina let him score let him get the ball let tear up the paint uh because that's the only that's be where you see more the the substitutions from Mississippi State more uh and you see the minutes are spread out uh for like too Smith you got to spread the ball around 19 assists in that win against Mississippi State you had four players scoring double digit points you had Denver Jones 15 you had ji broom 17 you had Jay wol 10 yet champ wasar 10 a Holloway didn't have a did not shoot the ball from the 3 at all he only shot the ball once in the entire game uh but of course Off the Bench you had Dylan Carell put up six you had CH Johns put up eight you had Trey Donson put up four you had Leo BR put up five and Katy Johnson put up three and then LLY or burman's gonna be replaced by Chris Moore who didn't score in that ball game so I think Auburn wins this game I I think it's I don't want to say reminiscent of that one I think Mississippi State the defense and and the and the stage that they are at you're going to get the best versions of both these teams both teams very good defensively Auburn has the edge offensively I think Auburn wins I think I I want to say I'm looking at how how the the score differentials Auburn and they always within 10 15 points of each other I'm gonna say Auburn 75 I think with the with the struggles off defensively with Miss defensively it's gonna be hard to score so Auburn 75 I'm say Mississippi State I'm gonna say 68 ni still seveno win for the Auburn Tigers but leave your predictions in the thoughts in the comments below uh do you think's going to make it to this do the the the championship round of the tournament because Texas A&M and Florida that's also going be a very fun game to watch today as well but with that I am d l atang on Twitter you also follow me right here on the College of loop where to like comment and subscribe and of course with all that being said uh go follow the socials Twitter Tik Tok Facebook Instagram the works and of course we'll see y'all on Sunday for well hopefully another pre pregame show but for the live stream on Sunday at 6 o'clock P.M Central Standard time but of course all that being said and I'm stalling for time just to get the outro ready there we go with all that being said this has been the college Loop pregame show thanks for watching and War [Music] Eagle