Auburn’s Men’s Basketball plays their first of 3 exhibition games on their trip to Israel, and we get a peek at the new look Tigers team. We talk about what the newcomers appear to be bringing based on their early work, and also what seems to have carried over from last season’s team.
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Auburn Basketball In Israel
Let’s talk about Auburn basketball. It’s almost football season and here comes Auburn basketball. They traveled to Israel, played their first exhibition game against the under-twenty national team and beat them to the fine tune of 117 to 56 in that game. Let’s talk about a few newcomers. Let’s break this down.
One of the newcomers that I want to bring up is a five-star recruit, Yohan Traore, who logged 20 points and 8 rebounds. He was the leading scorer of that game. Auburn is led by another talented five-star forward in his front court. What were our thoughts about Yohan Traore? He came off the bench in this game. He was in a rotation, which he came on with Cardwell. How do we think this kid did? What did we like about his game?
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Honestly, it was very hard to tell how good anybody was for us as if they were above 6’6 because there was no resistance from that other team. I saw people tweeting about it saying everybody that’s usually on their under-twenty team wasn’t there. Their professional league had played a major game or something. Even with what they are, the under twenty team, it wasn’t even the absolute best of those. This was a, “Who wants to sign up to play the men’s basketball team for scrimmages in the hot box back in 2001?” This game didn’t even have to be played.
With everything I saw from Traore and Westry, I can’t tell anything from that game and I don’t think anybody could tell anything. We weren’t well defended. They didn’t put up too much fight on the boards. There wasn’t much going on there. Did I see the skills from a five-star? Sure, I saw those skills and sizes. I saw the light on his feet I’m interested to see how that continues going forward but I’m not getting excited about this. We’re going to have a much different competition on Sunday and Monday. That’s what I want to see.
I don’t expect those brand-new guys to look so composed and be able to do exactly what they want to do against people who have been professionals for years and years. That’s more or less exactly how I want to see them get baptized like, “Here’s a grownup pushing you back.” Can you get to the spot you want to get to? Are you going to shrink up a little bit because you’ve never been pushed like that on the floor in a real game? We’ll see but I’m still glad to see what I saw from everybody. It was good for everybody.
Mike says, “For some of those guys who were missing off of Israel’s team has military obligations as well.” They mentioned that too on the SEC Network when that game was being played. Let’s talk about another newcomer. We talked about how undersized Israel was and how young that team was but let’s talk about Morehead State Transfer, Johni Broome. He registered 17 points and 9 rebounds. With how undersized team Israel was, there were a lot of second-chance points. Johni Broome was a big part in that game. What did you see from him in terms of his skillset and what he brings potentially to this team given that Walker Kessler is off to the NBA?
What I liked about Johni Broome was he wasn’t giving up free buckets. There were no free buckets when Broome is in the game. He’s challenging, altering and blocking shots. He was doing that well. He was a menace on the glass. I don’t think that for him specifically that it’s about his height because he is not a big leaper or anything like that. He’s good at anticipation and position. He knows how to use his frame to be able to be in the spots he needs to be defensively and on the glass. I liked a lot of what I saw from him. I liked his ability to finish around the rim from not the best angles all the time. He’s a good post presence in there.
We’re not talking about him now but I do like the high-low that I saw between him and Cardwell. Dylan Cardwell did a good job with post entry, specifically with Johni Broome’s ceiling. I thought that they did well with a high-low combination surprisingly. We’ll get to Dylan Cardwell and the things that I liked about him for sure.
Let me circle back to Yohan Traore. One of the things that I liked about him was he made his free throws. He looked comfortable and at ease at the free throw line. That’s going to be important because he is going to be a big guy that people are looking to foul a lot. As long as he continues to be big, whether he’s making a lot of shots or not, if he’s active and making sure that he’s in there in the paint on the offensive glass and making himself available for whatever down low he’s going to get foul. That’s not a winning proposition if he continues to be.
You can tell a lot even if someone’s making or missing free throws about how they approach their free throws. He looks super comfortable at the free-throw line. It’s not a pressure situation but free throws are free throws and he looked good at it. I do like what I saw out of that. The only thing I didn’t like about him, which is going to be a problem for him because he is taller.
You can tell a lot about someone by how they approach their free throws, even if they are making or missing those free throws.
He’s going to have to work on not bringing the ball down as low so much because he was getting stripped down low pretty frequently. He’s got to get stronger with his hands and realize, “If I’m going to bring it down there, that’s the only thing the shorter guys can do. They can’t block it.” He’s going to have to be stronger with it or work on his positioning in that way to make sure that he can get the opportunities to finish around the rim because he does look like he can do that fairly well. I did like what I saw out of both of those big men.
Mike, K.D. Johnson scored 13 points, had 5 assists and 3 steals but he came off the bench. Earning his start was Wendell Green. He had 8 points, 7 boards, 5 assists and ran the offense. What did you like about that? Do you expect to see more of Wendell Green starting in the upcoming season?
He didn’t hit a three. He looked regular. Guard play is still a concern. I’ll wrap that all into one question. I’m still concerned about guard play based on what I saw but then the competition level wasn’t very high either. I’m not sure anybody went out there and did anything impressive from a guard’s perspective. They got into lanes defensively and stole passes. K.D. had three steals. Wendell had two steals. We asked Bruce Pearl about shooting on this team and what the identity would be, with Broome, Yohan and some of those guys. We looked a lot better inside than we do out at this point. I wasn’t super impressed with Wendell Green at all.
I liked the game that Wendell Green had, not from a shooting standpoint because he didn’t take a lot of shots. I liked what he did from facilitation and running the offensive standpoint. He didn’t look out of control when he was in the game. For the most part, he looked aggressive when he could but the bigger issue, when we talk about poor guard play for me is we still don’t look like we are a three-point shooting team. We don’t look like we can threaten people from the outside at any level of consistency.
K.D. had a couple of good looks but it’s not one of those things where it looks like as the ball rotates around, you’re going to find a shooter who’s like, “You can’t leave that guy open.” I don’t know who that shooter is for this team or we’re going to need 1 or 2 of those to be able to fill it up. We’ve got to get the three-point presence better.
If you’re talking about scoring from the guard position, there wasn’t anything super impressive but I do like that K.D. and Wendell Green didn’t look out of control. Zep Jasper was almost nonexistent in this game. I don’t know that he does well coming off the bench, maybe because the rotation of the guards was 5 guards as opposed to the normal 2 to 3 guards. We had Westry running point at one point in time Zep Jasper ran point very seldomly. Wendell Green was running point for periods of time and also Tre Donaldson.
You had 4 or 5 guys who were bringing the ball to the court and that’s usually Zep’s role. Zep hit one three and missed another one bad. It was an ugly three that he put up there. For the most part, I didn’t see the harassing the guy three-quarters of the court type of thing that you see out of Zep Jasper. Hopefully, as the competition gets better, we’ll see them get into a more solid rotation and he’ll get into a place where he’s more of an impact on the game but that’s one thing. The shooting still has to get better for sure.
I’ve noticed that Zep has a tendency to shrink if he’s out there with Wendell because Wendell does become the primary ball handler.
He’s the better spot-up shooter and I don’t understand why you can’t get into that role of, “I’m not the ball handler but let me be the off guard who can shoot and spot up.” I still haven’t figured that out yet.
You mentioned them. Let’s go ahead and talk about them. Dylan Cardwell recorded his first double-double, had 12 points, 14 boards and was very active defensively and on the boards and created a lot of second-chance shots. He was able to get twelve off of crashing the boards. Talk about Dylan Cardwell and picking up where he left off last time being a high-energy guy, coming off the bench and bringing a lot of effort with his play.
He hit a little hook shot and then Mike G was in the chat like, “That was a smooth-looking shot.” I was like, “It’s time to take Ray in the off-season.” I don’t expect him to do that a lot but I’m sure he has been able to improve his game because he had to be focused on that. He flirted with the idea of the NBA for a moment. We know his weaknesses were his ability to finish at the rim, especially in the pick and roll.
Those hands, he couldn’t collect and corral the ball consistently. He seemed to have a better hands game. That was a better hands game for him. He’s always going to be a good defender but when you’re defending guys who are 6 inches shorter than you, that’s not the best measurement of how good you steal or how you have improved as a defender but he’s still looking up. To see that move from him and offensive move of any kind from Cardwell, I was impressed.
I wonder if Cardwell’s that much better on the offensive end or catches that pass and traffic when Wendell gets it to him. I like Wendell’s game. He wasn’t a great scorer but when you’ve got Traore, Flanigan and Broome who is a good offensive, I don’t need Wendell to go crazy. I would rather have him there dishing, distributing and keeping the offense flowing because even if he could go solo and crazy, we also risk stagnating the rest of the offense.
A lot of the guys need to be involved to stay active, especially the young guys. You can’t ask for a trade when you go out there, “Get in where you fit in.” That’s primetime for freshmen to low fit a little bit and you don’t want that. You want them to keep it moving. Wendell did a good job of that. I wonder if Bruce would play Broome and Cardwell simultaneously in the season because then you look unstoppable defensively, assuming both of those guys are going to be moving their feet enough to guards and 3s and 4s.
I like the idea that Cardwell improves enough offensively to be able to keep him on the floor with another big and not just an offensive big like Traore. Traore will have to develop defensively. His primary value is going to be offensive but Broome and Cardwell are on the court at the same time so I’m interested in that.
They looked good on the floor together. I liked everything I saw from Dylan Cardwell’s game. He still had the energy that he’s always played with. He was still solid as far as being able to be a rim protector. He played better when he had to go out. That’s one thing because the Israeli team was so much smaller, they were playing essentially the same offense that Miami ran against us in the tournament that got us bounced up out of there. They’re not as skilled and quick as Miami but what you did see out of the team was their ability to switch everything, including the bigs. They did a good job of making sure that their bigs didn’t have to guard out on the perimeter too high and early in the shot clock.
They were switching a lot of stuff down. “If you want to bring a guard to set a low screen, we’re going to switch off it. If you’re going to bring a big to go set a high screen, we’re going to switch early and put a small on that big because they’ll go screen anyway so somebody’s going to slip down low. The bigs were playing quasi-zone until it got late in the clock and they were trying to be aggressive on everything.
They did a good job as a staff adjusting to the five-out offense because they’re like, “We saw this and it made us look silly in the tournament last time. We’ve got a different plan that we’re going to go in against it.” They executed it well against subpar competition but did a good job of adjusting how they allow people to attack them when they know that’s the style of basketball that they’re going to be playing.
I liked everything that I saw from Dylan Cardwell from a footwork and hand standpoint and made great passes. He looked like he was just as spry in his energy on the defensive end. Props to him because I was one of those people who was like, “Dylan Cardwell’s good but I don’t know if he’s a starter good.” He was playing starter well so I’m looking forward to seeing his maturation and how that translates when the bodies are bigger around him because his footwork looks good. If he can still move well, having big bodies bump against you shouldn’t change that. Hopefully, his confidence remains at that level where it is though.
We got a quote from John Brandon that says, “Flanigan looked in control and confident. I like it.” There are a lot of people, especially on Twitter were hyped and excited about Flanigan. Flanigan looked a lot more comfortable. That’s the word I would use to describe his play. He was 4 of 10 and scored 10 points, had 5 rebounds and 4 assists. Mike G, your thoughts on Flanigan and what you saw out of him?
He looked like he trusted the key leads. Driving to the hole, he looked like he had a little bit more explosion. He put up a good-looking three-pointer. He went from 3 to 3. Flanigan is on his way back. He looked a lot more confident and he played for about eighteen minutes. He was up there in terms of minutes played based on team averages. They’re going to need him. It’s hard to make too many judgments from this first game like the makeup of this team without Jabari Smith, this team is a different team. This is a drastically different team, especially without Walker Kessler as well too.
It’s hard to make too many judgments from the first game.
We’ll see in the next game how Flanigan does but from a health standpoint, he looked healthy. He looked like he hit the weights and was in great shape. There were times last season when he looked lost on the court. He didn’t look lost on the court not so long ago. I thought he looked good out there. They’ll continue to build on that. He’s got time but he looked like he took a few steps forward this off-season.
That step back was nice though. I’m not even going to hold him. He looked a lot more comfortable. Jamal Cunningham says, “All of our guards are combo guards. They can play both well or won’t be great at either position.” Your thoughts on that gentlemen?
He’s a great defensive guard. He’s not a great penetration guard. If you can get him to defend well and hit a spot up three, it’s a great value for a guard. I’m disagreeing slightly because I do think he is great defensively. He is not great offensively but he’s can be incredibly useful offensively. I do think it makes more sense to have him out there with Wendell who can create a penetrating dish but it didn’t seem like they had that working well. Zep getting used to not being the person that’s the primary ball handler.
I’m glad they took K.D. out of the starting lineup. That didn’t make a lot of sense to me because what you had was neither Zep nor K.D. last time could distribute. The offense looked stagnant. We always got down early, especially in the last half of the year. We got down big and then we make these pushes to come back because we defend and Wendell can get the offense moving a little bit.
I agree that we seem to not have an all-world guard in that sense. There’s no Michael Jeffrey Jordan out there. He’s in Charlotte doing his thing. I don’t know if we need if we have the right mix of players on the court though. That’s what Bruce has to find. We saw some energy and speed out of Donaldson but he also looked a little out of control. He wouldn’t be in high school but he just got here. It’s going to take some time for us to see who can be that impressive scorer.
I don’t think we have a scorer and that’s what a lot of people want to see. We want to see a guy who’s fast breaking down the court, can clean up and finished very well at the rim in some weird positions while taking contact but also, do some distributing. He was undersized but his shot went great. We don’t have an all-world dude. That’s what people want to see from the point position but honestly, we don’t need that from the point position.
If everybody who’s at guard could shoot 33% to 38% from 3, we’re great. That’s it. We shot way worse than that. As a team, we shot low 30s. That’s not good enough. Jabari inflated our stats as a team from three. If from the guard position, I say we shoot 35% to 40%, we’re great. We need K.D. shots to land more often. If he’s going to get as many shots as he got last time, he needs to hit them. He can be crazy and high energy but you got to hit those shots. You can’t go 0 for 14 in the SEC tournament game.
It’s more about our ability to hit shots and then every guard’s strength will look like, “They’re great. Zep is not distributing but if he’s hitting that three behind the clock, it won’t matter that he can’t distribute because Wendell will be doing that. It’ll all fit together but Bruce has to get those guys in tune.” I’m glad they’re getting some of this experimentation out of the way. That’s why this trip is extremely helpful. You don’t have to guess once you get into the exhibition, “What are we going to do? Do we go you on the court with you?” No, we got an international trip to figure that out. It’s going to be great for him.
Before we get into some of the questions, let’s talk about Chance Westry, another newcomer. He logged thirteen points and was very efficient. There were a lot of things I liked from him, especially in terms of his ballhandling. He gives you another guy who can bring the ball up but he was very efficient in his points, 5 of 8. Your thoughts on Chance Westry?
I was super impressed with Chance Westry. He is the guard we needed last time. He was the alternate ball handler that’s a big ball handler. Last time when teams wanted to shut down our pick and roll, they did by hedging out high and bottling up our short guards. That’s not going to be as easy with Chance Westry if he’s the guy who’s initiating that.
He looks like he can be a ballhandler and distributor out top/to the hole and he can shoot over the top because he is a 6’6 or 7’0 type of guy. He’s under control and looked like he was the guy who can be your secondary ballhandler at any point in time and catalyze your offense in a different way than a Wendell Greene, Zep Jasper or K.D. Johnson could.
The most impressive thing about him for me was how he defended out top. He was a menace. His high school tape bears this out. He is committed on the defensive end. He did a great job on defense. He’s making it hard for them to get into anything when he was out there on the court because of his length and he has the agility to stay with shorter players that are quick. I loved what I saw from him on the defensive end. He is going to be the type of player that changes what you can do offensively because he can play a big point.
When you can have a guy who can be a big point guard, it changes what defenses are able to do against you. It’s going to make the stuff that Bruce likes to run more effective. You can’t just jump out on Chance Westry and double-team him. He can throw over the top. It’s no problem. You’re a man short on the back end where all of our threes are. It’s a different proposition. The only thing you’re missing is that guy whom you can swing it to on the back end and hit a three.
When you can have a guy who can be a big point guard, it changes what defenses can do against you.
If we can find a shooter that can catch and shoot like how Jabari Smith was able to do last time, that becomes a different team to play ball against because you have the pace that you can utilize with somebody like Wendell who can bring the ball in, play at a high pace, can get you in the open court and distribute. As long as he’s playing under control, we’re great.
You’ve got to slasher in K.D. You’ve got a guy who can be your alternate ballhandler. If Flanigan is back to being the athletic 3-2 guy, that’s a tough team to defend when you’ve got those threes. When you’ve got guys who can be ball pressure, heavy out top and guys who block shots on the back end, you’re back to being one of the top defensive teams in the country again. Chance Westry is a difference maker for that team specifically in their ability to have an alternative ballhandler and be a menace against whomever they’re going to have as the point guard.
D asked, “Who y’all think stepping up to replace Jabari since you brought him up? How does Auburn replace that production?”
The production is going to have to come by committee. We don’t have a Jabari Smith on this team because Jabari Smith was a unique catch-and-shoot player for someone that tall. There’s nobody on this team that can be the guy whom you swing it to and can’t leave them open from three that’s a losing proposition for you. What we were able to do was be better at post-entry and taking advantage of height because that’s something that we didn’t do well last time. When we had height advantages, we weren’t taking advantage of them. They did a better job of that in this game.
Hopefully, they can continue to do that moving forward but I don’t know the answer to how you replace Jabari Smith because he’s such a unique person. We don’t have that particular skillset on this team. It’s going to have to be a combination of a lot of things that could produce his numbers as far as offensive productivity. He was a mid-teens guy for the majority of the year. That’s not a crazy number of points to be able to reproduce because he wasn’t the go-to guy. It did it wasn’t until later in the season that they started running stuff through him. We’ll see who can be the person that we run sets through going forward as the season progresses.