We looked tired, played uninspired and at times looked like we did not even want to be there. But we found a way to win and that is huge. Levi Randolph came up big in those last five minutes. Cooper has been an up and down player for us but I will miss him when he is gone.
Officiating... WTH? SEC refs are terrible. It seems I say it after every game win or lose. I have never seen two fouls called in favor of one team turn into technical fouls for the other team. I don't know if the refs affected the outcome of the game but they were just bad. Have you ever seen a game with that many offensive fouls called?
I was very disappointed in the teams effort for most of the game. We have had two straight home sellouts and we played bad in both. This was a rivalry game against the barn. How can we not be ready to play? We struggled to inbound the ball most of the night.
We have an RPI of 45 which is middle of the SEC and puts us on the NCAA bubble. We have Florida coming to Tuscaloosa on Tuesday and we need to win that game.
We dodged a bullet, got the win and kept the season alive.
They did affect the outcome of the game. Auburn's goal was to do what Kentucky did to Bama, be very physical on the defense and force Bama to play from beyond the 3 point line. When you watch it on tv you only see where the ball is and I can assure you it was like a rugby match away from the ball, That is why tempers were flaring from the Bama players as Auburn was banging them very hard as they ran their picks and screens away from the ball and no calls were being made. This was especially true with Tarrant being guarded by Auburn's #12, he was just mugging Tarrant and no calls were made at all. He got Tarrant with an elbow in the mouth on a Bama inbounds play with the ref standing there and no call was made and it wasn't long after, Tarrant was ejected from the game. Tarrant's displeasure was affecting the whole team.
I think Grant's displeasure with Pearl stemmed from Pearl's pregame statements last week about him wanting to beat Bama more than any other team and then the physicality of the way Auburn played us. By the way, most of Bama's problems with the refs were on Pearl's end of the court and he stayed in the ear of the refs working them the whole game. The refs had more than one chance to T him up but didn't in the second half and warned him a couple of times.