A unique night in Neville Arena turned against the Auburn Tigers late on Friday night, as Steven Pearl’s squad saw the Arizona Wildcats break things open late and walk out of Neville Arena with an 80-69 win, giving the Tigers their first loss of the season.
Auburn overcame a double-digit deficit in the second half to eventually take the lead, but it was Arizona who kept rolling with physicality and getting solid play late from Ivan Kharchenkov and Mo Krivas to get things back in order.
The Tigers now prepare for a trip out to Las Vegas, Nevada for the Players Era 8, which begins Tuesday, Nov. 17 and runs through Nov. 19.
Pearl spoke to the media after the loss. Here are some of his most notable quotes from the session.
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On the play of the bench players in the game:
“I thought they gave us a real spark. That's one thing we've talked about being a huge strength of ours — when our best players don't have their best nights, those guys are able to come in and give us real life. It's something we've got to continue to have, and it allowed us to have an opportunity to win that game late. We just weren't able to put together enough stops late and execute enough offensively.”
On Thomas Dowd becoming a versatile factor on the court:
“I think in between games I've just been really intentional about trusting myself more. I feel like I'm a very good player and I feel like I haven't shown it in the first couple of games. So, I think, going into this game I really just had a mindset of trusting myself and trusting the work that I've been putting in. Instead of thinking about what other people think and just things like that. So, I think it was more just a shift in my mindset.”
On how to bounce back from the loss:
“That's our whole thing. We've got to get better every week. If we can do what we did after Florida State and put together a couple of really good weeks of practice, then this team can continue to progress and find a way to win some of these games.”
On if he got the physicality he desired out of his team against Arizona:
“That's not something that I'm going to worry about with this group. They're always going to play hard. They're always going to be physical. We definitely stepped up to the challenge on that end. Defensively, I don't think we were physical enough offensively. That's something that we've got to continue to get better at.”
On applying film study on shooting in games:
“We've got to do a better job applying it in games. We can't continue to go out there and these big moments, continue to take tough shots. It's not just one or two people. It's the entire team. We've all got to do a better job. I'll keep saying it. We've got to learn from it. We've got to learn from it. We've got to be accountable for it. We've got to get better.”
Auburn Undercover is an independent Auburn sports media company covering Auburn athletics, recruiting and insider news.
