Auburn has closed gap against Kentucky since last loss, but is third time the charm?
Bruce Pearl laid it out for his deflated Auburn Tigers after they left the court at Rupp Arena in late February.
“That’s a Final Four team guys. That’s what it looks like right there,” Pearl said. “This is the gap between us and them, 27 points right now.
“What do we need to do to close the gap?”
We’ll know the final answer to that question Sunday afternoon, when the Midwest Regional championship trophy will be awarded on the Sprint Center floor after fifth-seeded Auburn (29-9) earned a rematch against No. 2 seed Kentucky (30-6). At stake when the ball is tipped at 1:20 p.m. Central time: A spot in the Final Four.
The Tigers have shrunk the gap, winning 11 straight games after that beatdown in Lexington, where Kentucky won 80-53 and dropped the Tigers to 7-7 in SEC play by sweeping the season series.
The reasons for Auburn’s turnaround go beyond just making shots. The Tigers lead the nation with 438 made three-pointers, and Bryce Brown has hit 11 of 25 threes in the NCAA Tournament, including 7 of 11 against Kansas in a second-round victory.
Brown said he and his teammates listened to Pearl’s advice: Be like a fist on defense, be unselfish, move the ball better.
“We know what we have to do to beat them,” Brown said of Kentucky. “A lot of teams could have folded.”
While the Wildcats didn’t have Reid Travis, their second-leading rebounder, in the last Auburn game, they do have leading scorer and rebounder PJ Washington back after he missed the first two games of the NCAA Tournament because of a foot sprain.
Auburn won’t have Chuma Okeke, who had 20 points and 11 rebounds before sustaining a season-ending ACL tear against North Carolina on Friday. But Washington is still wary of Auburn after it made 17 threes in a 97-80 win over North Carolina, the most in a NCAA Tournament game since 1990.
“Once they get going, it’s hard to stop them,” he said.
Kentucky coach John Calipari agrees and said the last meeting was misleading, partly because the Wildcats hit 11 of 24 threes, their most in a SEC game, and Ashton Hagans, a 27.7 percent shooter from three, made 2 of 4. Washington, who is 31 of 74 from three this season, made 5 of 8.
“You ready for this?” Calipari asked reporters as he rattled off the stats. “And so all of a sudden, you know, we have a lot of threes we normally didn’t make, which was the difference in the game.
“It was close for awhile, and all of a sudden PJ went corner, PJ went top, PJ went wing, and all of a sudden, we’re up 12.”
Travis said film study alone won’t help against Auburn.
“If the effort is not there, the fight is not there, it all doesn’t matter,” he said. “Bring fight and energy, and that should be what will help us win the game.”
This story was originally published March 30, 2019 at 7:45 PM with the headline "Auburn has closed gap against Kentucky since last loss, but is third time the charm?."