Postgame Pod: Auburn defeats South Alabama 78-67

And welcome on in everybody here to the post stand pod at

Auburn under cover.

Nothing King joined by Patrick thing.

It's no longer St. Patrick's Day.

It's the era because because we've now moved past.

We've now moved past Tuesday into early early points of Wednesday morning.

And we are here again in Neville Arena.

Obviously that's not something we necessarily expected.

But Auburn as everybody knows, you know, they accepted their NIT bid and

quickly turned around to host some basketball games plural.

They hoped here inside of Neville Arena.

And it didn't look all that promising early on against South Alabama.

Looked like Auburn was the team that everybody, I think,

comes to expect in the NIT every year.

It's like, oh, the one of the top seeds is just pointed.

They didn't make the tournament and they're going to play flat.

Trail by 11 close to close to half time.

But I ended up taking a win here on Tuesday night inside of Neville Arena.

78 to 67 over the Jaguars.

And Patrick, I thought it was important for Steven Pearl to be very transparent post game

about kind of what went down early on.

And look, that's not to say South Alabama is an equality team.

They won 11 games in their league.

They were in a tie for first place on the second to last game of the regular season in their league.

Like had an opportunity to play for an NCAA tournament birth in their conference tournament.

But, you know, Auburn is medically way better than them in a lot of areas.

But Auburn just, and you hesitate to like use the cliche of, oh, they didn't look like they wanted to be here.

They just weren't playing very well.

We're not hitting shots early against that South Alabama zone.

And for a while, it was like, does this team have any answers?

And when South Alabama hit 10 straight shots, it was like, is this going to happen?

But credit to them, they flipped the switch.

And after that, it was kind of never really a question.

Well, and I think Steven even said it.

It's like, not to be, he was, I mean, I think they're like, and I two representatives in their rooms, which just made it kind of funny to me.

He was like, not to be rude, but like, they didn't want to be here.

Because of course, you want to get the NCAA tournament.

And this is obviously not playing a, unless you're like truly in some crazy rebuild situation.

Like those early, early pro years were being the NIT would have been the greatest thing ever for Auburn.

Obviously, that's not where the team is coming from.

And Steven said that he was like, this is what we expected.

Like, we thought it would be kind of hard early.

Could you just withstand?

And I think that was so much of the first half was like, despite everything, all the three point shots you missed.

The fact that South Albany was going on, runs your only down six at the half.

It's like, you almost would take that because at the end of the day, Auburn was able to get hot and advance.

And one thing Pearl pointed to as well is like, you know, he said, you almost need a half, a good half a basketball to just kind of wake up and realize that you're playing basketball.

Like it just kind of like because it's hard to not when you're in that state.

It's kind of, it's hard to not take things seriously.

Like you're just kind of playing.

You're just, you're just kind of doing what you've always done.

And he said as well, like, you know, sometimes it takes a win.

And so I would not be surprised to see Auburn come out this weekend against Seattle, who will be their second round opponent.

Would not be surprised to see them come out a little bit with a little bit more effort.

And I think it'll help that there will almost certain well, we don't know what time the game's going to be.

We don't, we have no idea.

Sure.

But like, you know, in addition to all things, like the building wasn't full because it was a Tuesday game at 9 p.m. with two days notice.

And so it's like even if the game Sunday at 11, like you would think that it would just there be a little bit more juice in the building as well.

And like you said, the team would come out with a little more time.

Yeah, you'll have time to, like you said, a couple days notice.

People have time to plan and get here.

Yeah, I mean, they, they am fatically, and this was to be expected.

And fatically broke the sell out streak tonight here in this building because 85 games.

I think it'll, it'll come to a close because they're just going to put regular season.

I mean, they won't be wrong in fairness.

What did you know somebody on the, somebody, you know, I put a tweet a picture of it and somebody said it looks pretty good on TV.

And I was like, it was to be expected.

Like, I mean, really, I think we're all sort of looking at this thing with the lens of let's all be honest with ourselves here and look at the reason why Auburn is here playing basketball

is because they didn't accomplish what they wanted to do in the regular season.

They didn't accomplish, you know, making it to the NCAA tournament.

But Steven Pearl in this program, see value in getting more young players on the court, you know, which we'll talk about here in a second.

And see value in getting some extra home games.

And they did both those things today and are going to continue to try to do that moving forward.

But arguably the MVP of this game, I would say is Kevin Overton with seven, three and a second half, that was a career high.

But the guy who lit the spark for this team in the second half was Kaden Magwood.

Which is who we all had it on our being.

Which if you told Auburn fans a couple months ago that, hey, Kaden Magwood is going to hit some big shots for this team in March.

They probably would have with flash.

But he comes off the bench early on.

It was the second rotation.

It was, excuse me, the first rotation of the game, first, first guys coming off the bench of the game.

And they bring in, they bring in five, the freshman point guard has not played in more than two months since the SEC home opener against Texas A&M.

Very complicated, murky lack of details situation for him because there was an off the court thing that Stephen Pearl sort of mentioned briefly.

And then he was just after that was like, well, Blake, Michelle, it's a much better defender.

They just disappear.

He just comes in.

There could not have been a colder player off the bench that is available in this game.

And yet he was the one who I think was really important early in the second half for getting the team to win.

Yeah. And he comes down and just knocks several threes down throughout the course of the game.

And I just think that's the thing is and Pearl was very like really praised them in the post game.

Was like they just preach so much, especially to like those type of guys and those positions in the rotation of like.

Is it what stay right ready?

Yeah, and it's like he did that and obviously took advantage of it and will see more minutes down the stretch of this post season.

Yeah, I mean, one thing Stephen Pearl said this week was this is an opportunity to be around guys.

Everybody said be around guys who have an opportunity to be in this program again.

Now it's Kaden Magwood going to come back after not after being put on the bench all season.

I don't know, but you know, Stephen Pearl said it after the game like he's a guy who's who's done the right things.

Like he said, stayed right, stayed ready.

Multiple fans have made comments on our on our board about like watching him on the bench during games.

And it's like he's very engaged and very involved.

And he's clearly done a good job on the scout team, Pearl said.

And Pearl also said he's got straight A's in school right now this semester.

So it's like what better time to give somebody an opportunity than in a game like this.

But also Patrick, you had to adjust the rotation a little bit in this game.

Maybe not the back court may may not have had to do much.

But you had to move around the rotation somewhat because you're without Keishan Murphy.

And that was the that was the news that came out pregame.

We started here rumblings of that yesterday and into today Auburn starting center.

Then they're starting center throughout the season.

We wondered if there were going to be any opt outs.

I asked Stephen about that on Monday and he was just like, you know, I don't really know yet because I haven't met with the team since selection Sunday.

And you're not going to be like, Hey guys, so we're going to the NIT also making sure you guys are all playing.

Yeah.

But then when they came out to practice, Keishan Murphy was not there.

It seemed Pearl said he didn't know.

He didn't know why there's really no rhyme or reason.

But that's not necessarily a the fact that I even thought to ask, you know,

or is anyone going to opt out that word opt out has just kind of crept into things over the years.

Of course, where it's like bowl games that you may not consider meaning that much.

And now obviously the NIT that as we talked about, it's not necessarily where Auburn wants to be.

Yeah.

And I don't, I mean, of course, I don't really know his exact situation.

Yeah.

And I think Stephen kind of alluded to that as well.

He's like, I don't really know why he didn't want to play in this.

But I think it, you know, for a game that quote didn't matter, it really did put Auburn in some end.

We'll see further down the tournament like schematically where it puts Auburn in some weird spots down low.

Sebastian Williams Adams was playing some of the five.

And I think the big thing Pearl said is like, look, like there's really only so many guys we can put down there.

There's really only so much we can do.

It's just going to come down to we just have to be describing your physical guy down there.

Because we're almost certainly not going to have the size of it.

Yeah, I keep shot.

I'll play it all 40 minutes.

And it's just like, I don't think he can do it.

If Auburn wins two or three games and this thing it makes it to Indianapolis where the semi finals and finals are like,

you just don't know if you're going to be able to do that.

But yeah, like you said after the game, maybe I worded the question a little poorly to him of like,

you know, what's your, what's your approach after seeing what what it looked like tonight?

And he was like,

the approach is what it is.

We don't have our starting center now and the only true center on the entire roster hasn't been available since December.

So it's like you just you're kind of just working with you got with what you got right now.

We mentioned Kevin over to seven three pointers there in the in the second half.

And now Auburn will move on to play Seattle.

We don't know when they're going to play them.

It'll be either Saturday or Sunday.

You will find out when at the conclusion of Wednesday's games because that'll wrap up.

Yeah, late tonight.

That'll wrap up the first round technically of the NIT.

So it'll be either Saturday or Sunday.

We know it'll be in this building.

We know Seattle have to come across the country.

We'll talk a little bit more about them this week on the website.

But that's a really good defense.

It's like a top 20 defense.

Metrically in the country on the flip side was kind of funny.

St. Thomas was an incredible offense.

And they matched up and you kind of thought.

Let's take the maybe you want to take the really good defense because like I don't know if I want a really good offense coming in here.

Considering South Alabama looked like a good offense for a while.

And so they got kind of completely shut down.

But yeah, Patrick, it'll be interesting to see like we talked about like the attitude and the mindset of this team was kind of just like.

Hey, let's let's shake ourselves away a little bit.

Like you're still kind of in the fog.

I kind of thought about it when they were trailing by 11 right for half time.

I'm like this team led Tennessee by 10.

Like five days ago in the second half that this is a good basketball team that was on the brink of making the NCAA tournament.

And so, you know, it's a I'll just say this.

It's a unique way for the year for year one of the Stephen Pearl era to end here in the NIT.

However, it does end.

It's a very unique way.

And I think the most important thing was not losing today because if you lost today, you are the headline like.

And that's what we talked about is like I think the everyone was like, why do you do this?

Why don't you do this pros cons?

Whatever.

And I think it's one of those things where I think we've all taken the mindset, fans, media, whatever.

Like this is fine.

It's exhibition basketball.

It really outside of like a horrible injury can't hurt you.

Correct.

parentheses.

If you don't lose the first game to the in state team and your home building and they avoided that today.

Yeah.

And as as our buddy Justin Lee said on Twitter, you know, schedule or not scheduling getting the in state team on one of the biggest days in the further city.

St. Patrick's Day.

Who saw the leprechaun?

It was maybe a bad idea because they played with a lot of fire and hung around for quite a while.

But Auburn obviously able to pull away and win on St. Patrick's Day inside of Neville Arena.

So now we look forward to the next game.

This coming weekend head over to Auburn Undercover.com.

We have a 50% off sale going on right now, which I hope you have taken advantage of because good grief.

There was a lot of stuff to write about on.

I don't know any content pieces we finished with on Tuesday, but Patrick's video here will count toward Wednesday's total.

But recruiting there are tons of guys on campus spring practice started.

The Auburn baseball team was over at a top five win and not just a win.

I mean, they look tremendous beating.

I bleed nine to three.

They beat George Attack.

And so very, very busy March right now over at Auburn Undercover.com.

We hope you will join us.

I don't want to shout out this guy as well on on St. Patrick's Day.

Sure.

Patrick continues to put in a ton of work for us.

I know that these are not, you know, we feel the need to do these after every game.

And then they're definitely a good part of our workflow and our content for for our maskable.

It's not like the most beneficial thing for our site necessarily, you know, the views that we get on YouTube or whatever.

But it is something we feel like doing and Patrick puts a ton of work into it and drove all the way back from a trip with his friends today.

So I just wanted to continue to highlight and got here for a nine p.m. tip off.

So I just wanted to highlight the work that Patrick puts in for our website on Patrick's Day.

It felt totally right.

Favorite.

Let's see favorite Patrick's ever for Auburn Athletics.

Pat Sullivan for football.

This is really good.

I wish Patrick time for basketball for me right there.

Yeah.

Your pastor.

Good answer.

I don't know if there's any Patrick's for baseball.

Probably certainly right.

But layering ones that we're just not even thinking of.

Comment below.

Yes.

Your favorite.

Your favorite Patrick on on retroactive retroactive Patrick's Day.

It's very late.

It's one in the morning.

And I think we're getting a little delirious here for a long day.

So for Patrick being an I'm Nathan King.

Thank you guys so much for joining us on the post game pod.

Thank you all so much.