Auburn, AL(EETV)- Auburn got back to winning ways on Wednesday night as they defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks 80-67. The win would be the coming out party for freshman Devan Cambridge as he led all scorers with a career high 26 points in the game.
He would finish the night shooting 10 for 14 from the field with five rebounds. Cambridge spoke after the game saying, "I felt like I brought the energy today. We needed somebody to step up and Coach Pearl told me to just play with confidence. I came out today and did that. My teammates found me, and I was just making my shots.”
Auburn's offense seemed to be moving in the right direction after last week's setbacks at Florida and Alabama. The Tigers shot 46% from the field and 37% from three-point range.
The Tigers started out slow in the first half, but a 14-0 run including three straight three-pointers from Cambridge, would give them a 37-31 lead at halftime.
The Auburn offense seemed to click in the second half as Samir Doughty scored 11 points after being held scoreless in the first half. J'von McCormick scored 13 points along with five assists and three rebounds. Isaac Okoro would score eight points on the night but would have career high seven assists.
Auburn would lead by as much as 21 points as Devan Cambridge made six three-point shots in the game. The Tigers would go on the win by 13 points to send the Gamecocks below .500 in SEC play.
Bruce Pearl spoke after the game saying," I think they did an outstanding job. We only had 15 assists last weekend, so we worked really hard on some things where we feel like we got guards that can go by people Samir, J’Von and Isaac. When we were going by people, we weren’t playmaking enough. We weren’t playing up to our feet. We worked really hard this week. It just so happened that that was exactly what we needed to try and do against South Carolina to beat them."
Auburn's record now sits at 16-2 (4-2 SEC) and they will return to Auburn Arena on Saturday to take part in the Big 12/SEC Challenge against Iowa State. Tip-off will be at 11am with the game to be televised on ESPNU.
