'Had to be said': Halftime speech vs. Ole Miss may serve as defining moment for Auburn
Locker rooms belong to the athletes.
Coaches can insert all the direction they want and instill the culture of their choosing, but players on the roster ultimately decide how much of the coach's words they're going to buy into. It goes back to the old saying: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Auburn basketball drank Saturday evening.
The Tigers found themselves down by as many as 13 points in the first half of their 91-77 win over Ole Miss at SJB Pavilion in Oxford, Mississippi. Coach Bruce Pearl's team looked well on its way to another loss in a Quadrant 1 opportunity − all four of Auburn's defeats this season have come in games of that variety.
Insert Chad Baker-Mazara, the former junior-college standout in his first season at Auburn. Baker-Mazara has quickly garnered a reputation for wearing his heart on his sleeve, not afraid to show his emotions after a violent dunk or critical steal.
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That's why it should surprise no one to hear Baker-Mazara kicked the staff out of the halftime locker room to deliver his own plea to his teammates, according to senior forward Jaylin Williams.
“This is their team," Pearl said of that moment. "I got out of the locker room pretty quickly. All I said was, 'Hey if we want to win this game, we can't give them 44 (points in the first half).' He’s got my demeanor. Chad and Johni (Broome) and the other guys, they said what needed to be said.
"Then we came in, we talked about the things we needed to do – and then we went out and the players did it.”
Auburn shot 38.2% in the first half and turned the ball over eight times. It also only had 18 points in the paint.
The Tigers responded by making a blistering 73.3% of their shots in the closing 20 minutes, coupling that elite shot-making with just three turnovers and 32 points in the paint. They outrebounded the Rebels by six, held them to zero bench points and outscored the hosts by 23 points.
A switch was clearly flipped.
"Y'all tell me," Broome said when asked how much of a difference the halftime speech made. "... We weren't pointing out anybody, we were just encouraging everybody on getting what we needed to win this ball game. Everybody came out with a different spark. We just needed everybody on the same page − I've got your back, you've got my back. Let's go out here and win the game."
Broome particularly shined, as all 15 of his points came in the second half. He also finished with nine rebounds, three blocks and a career-high seven assists in 25 minutes: "He never panicked," Pearl said of Broome. "His expression, his body language. He never wavered. I thought that was extremely calming for the rest of our team. ...
"At the end of the day, who's the biggest, baddest boy on the block? It was Johni. They couldn't handle him in there. ... I mean, he almost had a triple-double."
Broome added of Baker-Mazara's speech: "It had to be said."
Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: How speech from Chad Baker-Mazara led Auburn basketball over Ole Miss
