AUBURN, Ala. ?- Auburn men?s basketball coach Tony Barbee has been waiting for his team to show it can win ugly.
Coming off of a break that lasted nearly two weeks between games, the Tigers? offense got off to a painfully slow start against South Florida on Wednesday.
For the first time this season, Auburn responded with the kind of gritty play Barbee wants and eventually got the offense going in a 52-40 win over Big East doormat South Florida at Auburn Arena.
?I want to score 80 points a night, but that isn?t always going to happen,? Barbee said. ?You have to win what I call a grind out game.?
Auburn (5-1) only scored eight points in the game?s first 10 minutes behind an offensive attack hampered by injuries to starting guards Varez Ward and Frankie Sullivan.
Neither player has been able to practice much in the past two weeks, and as a result, Shaw graduate Chris Denson and Josh Wallace started in place of Ward and Sullivan.
South Florida (6-5) opened the game on a 9-2 run led by the play of 6-10 center Augustus Gilchrist.
A mismatch for most big men because of his ability to put the ball on the floor and drive to the bucket, Gilchrist scored six points in the game?s first 10 minutes.
But Auburn shut down the rest of South Florida?s scoring options and clawed its way back into the game.
?We didn?t let our lack of offense in the first 10 minutes bury us,? Barbee said. ?We still guarded and rebounded. We kept them off the offensive glass.?
Undersized for maybe the first time all season, Auburn responded by out-rebounding South Florida 34-26 and clamping down on Gilchrist?s one-on-one opportunities in the post.
Another scoring option never developed for the Bulls, who shot 33.3 percent from the field, made only 4-of-18 three-pointers and shot 50 percent on free throws.
?We couldn?t pick and roll, we couldn?t find the basket, and we just couldn?t score,? South Florida head coach Stan Heath said. ?I thought Augustus Gilchrist had a terrific first half, but we were searching for a second or third option.?
Denson took care of the spark Auburn needed.
A slasher who is at his best in the open floor, Denson scored 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting and tied Sullivan for the team high in points. Denson has always been able to score.
But the 6-3 guard also contributed three steals and a block to repeatedly start fast-break opportunities for an offense that spent most of the first half struggling in the half-court offense.
?Coach says all the time, I don?t have the intensity on defense like I do on offense,? Denson said. ?That?s a big focus for me. I?m still working on it.? Barbee has wanted Auburn to be known as a team with a swarming defensive reputation.
Through the first five games of the season, though, the Tigers had struggled on the defensive end of the floor, culminating in a poor second-half performance on the road against Seton Hall that led to Auburn?s first loss.
In that game, Auburn gave up 81 points to a team predicted to finish not far above South Florida, a team slated to finish last in the Big East by preseason prognosticators.
Against South Florida, though, Auburn turned in its best defensive performance since 2008, when the Tigers held Alabama A&M to only 40 points right before New Year?s Eve.
The loss to Seton Hall served as a wake-up call for Auburn.
?Against Seton Hall, I think we were just too timid,? Denson said. ?We came back home, and in the locker room before the game, it just felt way different than the locker room at Seton Hall. The intensity was just there.?
Source: http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2011/12/15/1858485/auburn-basketball-former-shaw.html
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