Auburn, AL (EETV)- Tenacious defense and a second half surge led Auburn to an 80-63 victory over the Texas Southern Tigers.
SEC Freshmen of the Week, Justin Powell, was about the only player who was able to knock down some shots in the first half and led the Tigers with nine points.
Allen Flanigan found himself in some early foul trouble as he was only on the court for six minutes in the first half.
The Auburn Tigers trailed at the break 40-39, however, it was the eight offensive rebounds, four blocks, and three steals that kept the game within one going into the locker room.
Coming out of halftime the defensive intensity kept rising for Auburn as they forced 10 turnovers in the second half alone, five of which came off Auburn steals.
It is noticeable that the young Tigers’ have been learning from prior games, especially the one against UCF, that when shots are not falling from deep to take the ball to the hole. Auburn shot 4-23 from deep but shot 28-61 from the field and 20-32 from the foul line due to attacking the basket more often.
After sitting most of the first half, Allen Flanigan took over in the second and finished with a team high 18 points on 6-12 shooting. Justin Powell and Jaylin Williams finished with 15 points each and combined for 13 rebounds.
Stats do not always show who the key impact players were in a game. It was the intensity and emotion of JT Thor and Dylan Cardwell that sparked an 18-2 run in the second half to give Auburn a commanding lead. Thor and Cardwell combined for 14 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 3 steals.
“The effort and energy of Dylan Cardwell, I mean goodness gracious, played with such passion and got excited about some defensive rebounds and blocking a shot and getting a stop. I loved the fact that he showed his emotion, really pleased with that,” head coach Bruce Pearl said.
For Texas Southern, Michael Weathers led the team with 11 points on 5-8 shooting with three others scoring nine or more points. However, it was the 18 turnovers and only 5-11 from the charity stripe that was the story of the game for the TSU Tigers.
Auburn finished the game with only nine turnovers beating their previous low of 17 turnovers by a substantial margin.
With the win Auburn is now on a three-game win streak and advances to 4-2 on the season. The Tigers will be back on the hardwood Saturday at 1:00 p.m. as they take on the Troy Trojans in Auburn Arena.
