Auburn celebrating its six seniors — including staples like Johni Broome, Dylan Cardwell, KD Johnson and Chris Moore — a monster dunk from Jaylin Williams and a lucky (or really talented) Auburn student sinking a 94-foot, baseline-to-baseline putt to win a car made up the story Saturday night from Neville Arena as the 13th-ranked Auburn Tigers topped the Georgia Bulldogs 92-78.
With so much happening, they were easy to miss if you weren’t looking for them — 21 of one thing and 29 of another.
But as Auburn now turns its attention to the postseason, where Senior Night celebrations and free cars don’t matter, it’s important those stats not be overlooked.
Junior guard Denver Jones logged a 21-point performance against Georgia Saturday night, good for a career-high in an Auburn uniform.
All of Jones’ 21 points came via made 3-pointers as he strung together a 7-for-9 shooting efficiency from beyond the 3-point line.
“It makes us more dangerous,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said of Jones’ offensive success. “And a better coach would’ve got him 14 shots instead of just nine, for real. So that’s on me.”
In Auburn’s last five games, Jones has gone 13-for-21 from beyond the arc, meaning he’s trending better than 61% from the perimeter. Prior to Auburn’s last five-game stretch, Jones was shooting at a 3.
“I feel like it’s about time for everybody to start getting hot,” Jones said Saturday night. “I feel like right here in March, this is the right time for everybody to start playing with more confidence, start taking their open shots and start knocking them down.”
The Tigers went 11-for-23 from the 3-point line in Saturday’s win, giving Auburn its most made 3-pointers since the last time it met with Georgia on Feb. 24 in a game that saw the Tigers sink 14 3-pointers.
And as some might recall, success from beyond the arc is what helped pace the Tigers to a deep postseason run in 2019.
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“If you see at the 3-point shooting, it was a huge factor,” Pearl said of Auburn’s competition run in 2019, which finished within the Last Four.
In the interim, seeing the Tigers share the ball the way they did against the Bulldogs Saturday night was too a promising sign as Coppery recorded 29 helps — the foremost of any amusement within the Bruce Pearl period.
“Assists are fun, particularly a great pass,” Williams said. “An help ordinarily leads to a 3-ball or a insane dunk or something like that. Helps can alter the diversion, and when you’re playing like that, everybody included is having fun. And that’s fair Reddish-brown basketball.”
Broome and Chaney Johnson both dished a team-leading five assists in the win, while Williams and Cardwell both finished with four apiece.
Georgia made it a point to try to limit Broome’s impact on Saturday’s game after Auburn’s leading scorer put down 16 points against Georgia in February. And part of the gameplan against Broome, who still managed 14 points Saturday, was to double- or triple-team the big man, which in turn leaves someone else open.
“Johni would love to score more,” Pearl admits. “But I feel good about him getting the ball, because he is unselfish, and he is a really good passer. I think that, for Johni, the ability to be able to make plays offensively and defensively, inside and out — shoot it inside-out, score it inside-out, be a reliable free-throw shooter and a playmaker — that’s the stuff that translates to the next level for him.”
Now as for Auburn as a whole?
Efficient 3-point shooting — from Jones or elsewhere — and a healthy heaping of assists will likely be what translates to the next level for the Tigers in the postseason.
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