The Auburn Tigers walked out of Neville Arena on Monday night as winners, taking a 75-53 victory over the Appalachian State Mountaineers to move to 2-0 on the season. However, this game did not come without its own little flares.
The Tigers had plenty of big sparks of momentum, but there was also a little bit of chippiness thrown in as well with a couple of short scuffles during the game.
Nonetheless, it was another comfortable win for Steven Pearl’s squad in the end, who now looks forward to a marquee game in hosting the Arizona Wildcats on Friday.
Following the game Pearl held his postgame presser, touching on what helped lead Auburn to the win, but also reflecting on what it needs to work on as well.
Here were some of his most notable quotes from the game.
On his team needing to keep composure through tension:
“Obviously the game got really chippy early. I think we lost our composure a little bit. That's something we've got to do a better job of. We're up 13, we gamble on a post dig, they kick it out for a 3. We come down, Narcisse kind of gets his arm taken off. Falls to the floor and taunts the guy, technical foul, they hit a 3 on the OB. That's an 8-point swing right there because we couldn't keep our composure. For us, we've got to do a better job in those moments.”
On his confidence in Tahaad Pettiford:
“I'll have to watch the film a little bit, but obviously he got off to a good start. When he sees that first one go in, his confidence continues to be through the roof. What I'm most pleased with is three assists, no turnovers — seven assists, no turnovers in two games. Never worried about him offensively getting it going.”
On the toughness of Thomas Dowd:
“He just does so many things that don't show up on the stat sheet that impact winning at such a high level and that stuff's contagious. And those are the things that we need him to continue to do. We've got to continue to find ways to get him cleaner looks offensively because he showed in the first game what he's capable of. I thought he may have forced the issue a little bit tonight in the post. But I always want him to play free offensively because I want to reward him for how hard he plays for us on the other end of the floor.”
On the physicality that Narcisse Ngoy has:
“I thought Narcisse, he played through a lot of physicality early in that game and to be able to get 11 rebounds, six offensive rebounds. I just think that's such a dimension that we obviously did not have last year and it's really important.”
On the two runs in the second half that broke the game open:
“It was the difference in the second half, but you don't go on those runs unless you get stops. And I thought that was the biggest reason why we were able to go on multiple runs is because we were able to string together two or three stops consecutively. And, whereas in the first half we built up a lead, we broke down and we lacked discipline, and we allowed them to get back into it. I thought in the second half we did a better job of executing off of those runs.”
Auburn Undercover is an independent Auburn sports media company covering Auburn athletics, recruiting and insider news.
