Everything Bruce Pearl said after No. 13 Auburn’s 40-point win over No. 11 South Carolina

AUBURN — It was just one of those nights for Bruce Pearl and Auburn.

The Tigers (20-5, 9-3) rolled to a 22-point halftime lead and ultimately a 40-point win over the Gamecocks (21-4, 9-3) on Wednesday night. The win moved Auburn into second place in the SEC.

“One of the things you notice when you prepare for them is they don’t beat themselves. They take good shots every time down, they play really well together. They have been holding teams in the league to 64 points,” Pearl said.

“After tonight, after a slow start, we just made shots and played with great freedom. We disrupted them offensively, we turned them over, were aggressive, and made plenty of shots out of our defense. We compliment South Carolina. That’s the SEC Coach of the Year, to be picked last and he’s 20-4 right now, those kids have done a phenomenal job. Tonight, we just played exceptionally well.”

Pearl said sometimes, it’s just about the matchup. That was evident as Johni Broome and Jaylin Williams combined for 45 points on 9-12 shooting from three.

“Anytime you can put your bigs on the perimeter to be guarded, it opens up the lane. It opens up all the things you are trying to run. It doesn’t get studied and talked about enough. Certain matchups are certain matchups. The way we guard, the things we do offensively, worked really well against South Carolina. Against Florida, in that matchup, the way we played and the way they played, it didn’t match up very well for us,” Pearl said.

“I’m glad we were able to play for 40 minutes, turn them over. The act we scored 101 and we did it with 22 assists and seven turnovers, we demonstrated some versatility defensively. We’ll have our challenges against Kentucky, the way they play and with their size and athleticism. That’s going to be a tough matchup for us.”

More from Pearl below:

The Tigers only committed seven turnovers, while forcing 13 South Carolina turnovers, and winning the points off turnovers battle 25-8.

“I thought Steven Pearl did an amazing job in the scout. He had us really ready to go. We did some things with our ball pressure that bothered them, and we weren’t afraid to switch. BJ Mack is such a tough cover, that if you guard him traditionally, he’ll tear you apart. We switched a lot tonight. They rolled us down some and scored some down low tonight, but that was part of it to take away things they like to do offensively.”

On Broome and Williams’ big nights from outside:

“I don’t know. Jaylin is 5-7 and Johni is 4-5. When you have nine three balls from your starting front court, it makes everything you might try and do offensively work. There are picks and rolls and picks and pops, now after Johni popped a few, I’ll never get him to roll. That makes you hard to guard, it makes you hard to guard. What do you do? If you don’t switch, we’re going to get those shots. If you do switch, we’re going to get those mis-matches inside. It’s not rocket science.”

Auburn won their 16th straight home game and 42nd home game in 45 tries over the last three seasons:

“You can’t ensure that. They are kids and the crowd elevates their play. It sometimes can bother the opponent and that’s why you put things together to have a great home court advantage. At the same time, we’ve won three road games in the SEC and I think we are 3-3 in the league. We have three more opportunities, Georgia, Tennessee and Missouri. We have three more opportunities.”

For the sixth time in seven seasons under Pearl, Auburn has won 20 games in a season:

“I didn’t even know it was our 20th. That’s sort of a number that matters to coaches. We pay attention to 20. We play so many games now that 20 doesn’t mean quite as much, but 20 was always a benchmark. 21 wins, which we had last year, was 11th most wins in the history of Auburn basketball. We talk about trying to make history and this team is trying to make history. There’s no better opportunity than having Kentucky on national television, College Gameday. I’m so happy for Auburn. We work all year long for these opportunities.”

Denver Jones played some point guard. Pearl explained the move afterwards:

“Denver is one of our best defenders and one of our older players. The fact that KD and Denver are both playing pretty well, and both are such good defenders, having them be just at the two spot with only 40 minutes, kind of feel like they may need a few more minutes. We took a look at Denver at the point earlier in the year and it makes us a little bigger, better defensively.”

Tre Donaldson finished with 11 points and four assists, with zero turnovers.

“Tre is fun to watch out there. I’m harder on my points guards than other positions on the floor. If you see me hollering at my point guards more, it’s like a coach hollering at his quarterback. They have to control the game. Tre has a good understanding of our offense and what we’re supposed to do. He’s a competition, a physical defender, and plays at a good tempo, the way we like to play. He plays fast, he plays well. He’s not afraid to make plays. Part of what you have to understand is you have to make plays defensively, you can’t sit back and let them run their stuff and be comfortable. You have to fly around a little bit. We didn’t have a turnover at the point guard position, which is a positive for us.”

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