Bruce Pearl proud of his team after Texas A&M win: 'This team has improved more than any team I’ve had at Auburn'

AUBURN — This wasn’t Auburn’s best game of the season, but against top-flight competition, winning games by 15-plus points isn’t going to be the usual outcome.

The 66-55 win over Texas A&M extended the Tigers’ streak of wins to eight, but it was a battle. Auburn was only 5-22 from three, scored only one second-chance point and lost the rebounding battle by 10, but won the bench by 20 points, fast break points by 11 and points in the paint by six.

Buzz Williams‘ squad always makes life hard on Bruce Pearl and Auburn. The Aggies had won eight of the last 10 and four of the last five in the series coming into Tuesday night.

The Aggies’ switching defense, 1-2-2 full-court pressure and disguising man-to-man and zone defenses slow down the Tigers’ pace. The Texas A&M guards are always tough and physical, while the big men crash the boards and wreak havoc on the glass.

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“We were having a hard time finding things that would be successful,” Pearl said.

But despite Auburn’s offensive challenges, the defense rose to the occasion. In the last 9:15 of the game, Texas A&M didn’t make one field goal. Not one, as Auburn ended the game on a 20-7 run.

“When you hold a team in this league to 55 points, when you hold a team in this league to 39 percent shooting, when you hold, and I challenged my guards — Wade Taylor is the preseason player of the year and he was 2-16, 0-8 from three. We sent them to the foul line, but I thought our guards did a tremendous job defensively,” Pearl said.

Taylor finished with eight points. Texas A&M big man Henry Coleman scored 17, while it took Tyrece Radford 14 shots to score 13 points.

“I thought our guys really competed to stay in front on defense. I thought there was, we fouled a few times at the rim, but we made some plays. If we can continue to guard and get a little bit of offense from our defense, that’ll be the key to consistently win each night.”

Jaylin Williams led Auburn with 22 points, followed by 14 from KD Johnson and 10 from Johni Broome.

Williams was fantastic, shooting 8-10 from the field and notching his 100th career win in the process. During Auburn’s 8-game winning streak, Williams is averaging 16 points per game, scored 20 or more points four times, is shooting over 70 percent from the field and over 43 percent from three. His dagger-three make with under a minute left extended Auburn’s lead from four to seven points, essentially sealing the Tigers’ win.

“Before games, I haven’t been feeling well. I’ll wake up in a bad mood, but it’s working,” Williams said. “Hopefully every morning I wake up in a bad mood and keep playing the way I’m playing.

Auburn held an eight-point lead at halftime, but watched that lead disappear in the second half. The Tigers turned the ball over six times, committed five fouls in the first seven minutes, and it looked like things were slipping away as Texas A&M grabbed a two-point lead and the momentum.

But credit Pearl’s ever-improving team for resetting and responding, going on a 8-0 run themselves and retaking a lead they would never relinquish over the final eight minutes.

“I do think they showed some poise. We took a great punch in the mouth from Texas A&M in the second half when they came back and got a lead,” Pearl said “We didn’t panic. We talked about in the last timeout, we were up two with four or so minutes to go. We’re in good shape, that’s a good team and we haven’t played great offensively. We were in position to be in position and I tried to give those guys some confidence.”

Interestingly, it wasn’t freshman Aden Holloway leading the charge down the stretch either. Instead, it was sophomore Tre Donaldson, who Aggies’ coach Williams called the most improved player he’s seen on film this season. Donaldson played 13 minutes to Holloway’s seven in the second half, as Pearl went with the more experienced guard against Taylor, Radford and co.

“I thought Tre was playing well. He played well at Arkansas and just had a bit more experience,” said Pearl. “I think that was my call. We have two good points guards out there for sure. Dylan Cardwell could have played more in the second half. He played really well in the first half and didn’t get quite as many minutes in the second half and that’s what makes a great team.”

Cardwell scored six points and grabbed five rebounds in 12 minutes of action.

Auburn is now 13-2 overall and 2-0 in the league for the fourth time in the last seven seasons. The last three times the Tigers started 2-0 in SEC play they won the regular season SEC title twice and finished second in the league the other time. It’s arguably Pearl’s most balanced team, but is it his best team? Time will tell.

“It’s way too early to tell,” he said. “This has been one of the hardest working teams that I’ve had. This team has improved more from the summer to the point where we are right now than any team I’ve had at Auburn. We’ve put ourselves in position. We have work to do.”

Next up for Auburn is another home game against LSU on Saturday.