Easily rattled? Auburn basketball proves that wrong in beatdown of Indiana
ATLANTA — Things could've very easily gotten dicey for Auburn basketball.
The Tigers came into their 104-76 win over Indiana on Saturday with a plan. Coach Bruce Pearl knew the Hoosiers had a propensity to work the ball inside, and he prepared his team all week to handle the big bodies Indiana deploys in the post.
What Pearl wasn't expecting was a 3-point bombardment from the Hoosiers, who made four of their first five shots from deep and jumped out to an early 22-10 lead. The rough start came on the heels of Auburn falling victim to a court storming at Appalachian State on Sunday.
The environment in Boone, North Carolina, against the Mountaineers was rambunctious. Pearl thought it affected his team negatively, especially the newcomers who had yet to play on big stages before.
"I thought definitely we had a couple of guys that were a little shell-shocked, and they struggled," Pearl said Sunday. "We had some guys get rattled, for sure."
BRUCE PEARL: Coach's favorite part of being with Auburn basketball isn't related to the court
AUBURN FOOTBALL: Tigers vs. Maryland in Music City Bowl: Score prediction, scouting report
Auburn played Indiana on a neutral floor about 100 miles from home, but the crowd in State Farm Arena looked about equal. In fact, the Hoosiers may have had the advantage.
But the Tigers weathered Indiana's early run and punched the Hoosiers back twice as hard. Auburn closed the final 12:33 of the first half on a 32-8 run, outscored Indiana by 10 points in the second half and forced the Hoosiers to miss all but two of their 12 triples after their initial 3-point wave.
"I thought being down whatever it was, 22-10, that will shake your cage a little bit," Pearl said. "And I thought our guys hung in there because easily they could have gone, 'Here we go again.' And they didn’t."
Nothing demonstrated Auburn's composure better than its work at the foul line. The Tigers made their first 11 shots from the charity stripe and finished 20 of 23. Aden Holloway, Denver Jones, KD Johnson and Chad Baker-Mazara combined to make all 14 of their attempts.
But also impressive was Auburn survived Indiana's run and ultimately trounced the Hoosiers without much production from preseason All-SEC center Johni Broome. The leading scorer for the Tigers logged just two points on 16.6% shooting.
It was everyone else who picked up the slack in what had the potential to quickly become a hostile enviornment.
"We’ve got 10 starters, so everybody is ready to play at any given moment," Holloway said. "You could see that tonight. Johni, he struggled for one game. I know he’s going to bounce back next game, and we’re going to need him.
"But we’ve just got 10 starters. Every guy is ready to play at all times.”
Ten of Auburn's 11 regular rotational players scored, and six Tigers had 10 or more points. Auburn only turned the ball over three times, which ties a program record for the least in a single game. The Tigers also shot 48.3% from 3-point range after combining to shoot 11 of 67 (16.4%) from deep over its past three games.
It was a true all-around effort in a game that could've easily unraveled after Indiana's hot start.
"As you look up and down our roster, virtually every player had a big day," Pearl said. "I wouldn't be so hard on IU for this one because I don't know how we could play much better."
Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on Twitter @rich_silva18.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: How Auburn basketball demonstrated composure in Indiana win
