Auburn basketball is struggling against opponent's star players
As expected, Auburn basketball has taken a bit of a step back from where they were a season ago.
Losing first-round NBA Draft selections Jabari Smith and Walker Kessler has hurt this year's team, but the frontcourt doesn't seem to be a huge issue.
Auburn's guard play has not been as consistent as Bruce Pearl may have wanted for the past two seasons. In their five losses this season, their defense has struggled.
Take a look at today's stat of the day.
Stat of the day:
In Auburn's five losses, the opponent's leading scorer in the contest averaged 28.4 points per game. All five players were guards.
What it means:
It's hard to criticize because of how effective they were at times last year, but Auburn's guards are struggling on defense, mainly because of their size disadvantage. Plain and simple. Here's what each individual top scorer did in all five losses:
Kendrick Davis (Memphis) - 27 points, 9-19 shooting (7-7 FT)
Boogie Ellis (USC) - 28 points (CAREER HIGH AT THE TIME), 9-15 shooting
Terry Roberts (Georgia) - 26 points (TIES CAREER HIGH), 8-16 shooting
Tyrece Radford (Texas A&M) - 30 points, 8-17 shooting (11-12 FT)
Erik Stevenson (West Virginia) - 31 points (CAREER HIGH), 10-17 shooting (4-5 FT)
Auburn Today broke down the numbers a little further by comparing the scorers in the five losses to the leading scorers in Auburn's wins - by month.
November - 14 PPG
December - 15 PPG
January - 23 PPG
The Tigers are very clearly struggling against SEC guards this season, and because of their size limitations throughout the position, it doesn't seem like there's a solution on the horizon.
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