McNeese State Review

I guess I shouldn't have been so worried. The Tigers came out and played what I think was the best complete game of the Barbee era. The comeback over Mississippi State last year was great, but this was an excellent performance from start to finish. It was the largest margin of victory, the best shooting percentage, and most points scored in regulation under Barbee.

Official Recap
Quotes
Box Score

The Good

• Six players with 8 points or more: Chubby 21, Ward 14, Kenny G 13, CD 10, and Frankie and Payne each had 8
• Shooting from the field on both ends - Auburn shot 53.2% from the field and held MSU to 35.8%. Auburn also took 9 more shots. MSU's top player, Patrick Richard, was held to 3 of 13 shooting. If Auburn can take 9 more shots and hit a higher percentage of those shots than their opponents this year, they'll do okay.
• Rob Chubb - Chubby put up a 21-7-3-0-2. Three of those rebounds came on the offensive end. He made all 3 of his free throws. Coach Barbee has been very impressed by his off-season work, and tonight was the kind of night Chubby needed to believe in that work.

The Not As Good

• Free Throw Shooting - Again with this? Auburn was 52.2% (12 of 23) for the game, which was lower than their percentage from the floor. Denson was the primary culprit at 2 of 6. Ward wasn't much better at 1 of 4. With as much as these two get to the line, they HAVE to make those shots. It's one thing if guys like Forbes and Kouassi can't hit more than 50%, but Denson and Ward are good ball handlers that will not only get to the line in the meat of games, but they'll also be counted on to make those shots as the game winds down. This has been an issue with Auburn for longer than I'd care to remember
• Fouls - Auburn had 22 of them. The only reason this game stayed under 30 was because MSU hit their foul shots. Last year Auburn fouled too much because they weren't as good on defense. Hopefully there's enough athleticism on this team that it won't be an issue later in the year.
• Uh...there weren't many non-students there. Most observations had more students at the game than everyone else. This is a good/bad thing though. It's great that so many students went, but couldn't Montgomery people have driven 1 hour on a Friday night, when football is on the road for the weekend, to support the boys? Hopefully they're reading the paper this morning and realize that this team might not be too bad.

 This one was a lot of fun. MSU is a veteran team with the Southland Conference's pre-season player of the year. Auburn never trailed and led by more than 20 for most of the second half. Hopefully Auburn can carry some confidence forward into Monday's game.

Songs of the Post: Nothing, iTunes was updating while I wrote this morning. Curses.