Listen, I\u2019ve been to a lot of Auburn practices over the years. I\u2019ve heard players and coaches fired up, challenging teammates. It\u2019s not uncommon. <\/p>\n
Rarely though, have I heard a player and coach challenge the team through the media in the way that associate head coach Steven Pearl<\/a><\/strong> and senior leader Dylan Cardwell<\/a><\/strong> did during postgame radio after Auburn\u2019s 20-point first-round win over Alabama State.<\/p>\n 1-seed Auburn slugged their way to a 83-63 win over 16-seed Alabama State on Thursday afternoon. At one point with two minutes before halftime, the Tigers led by only one point after leading by 13. <\/p>\n Auburn committed 12 turnovers, missed 14 free throws, and for large portions of the game, looked tired or sloppy or disinterested, whatever way you want to describe a very lackluster outing.<\/p>\n BRIEF THOUGHTS AND GRADES: AUBURN OVER ALABAMA STATE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n EVERYTHING BRUCE PEARL SAID FOLLOWING THE FIRST-ROUND WIN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n PHOTOS: TIGERS TOP THE HORNETS IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n RAPID REACTION: AUBURN 83, ALABAMA STATE 63<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n So, I\u2019m just going to give you what Pearl said in response to being asked his thoughts on the game, and the same with Cardwell.<\/p>\n First up, Pearl.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s about the only positive is that we won the game. It was embarrassing, honestly,\u201d Pearl said. \u201cTo come out in the NCAA Tournament with that energy and effort, that\u2019s why we lost last year. We have to be so much friggin\u2019 better than what we are right now. If I\u2019m Creighton, I\u2019m licking my chops right now. I\u2019m really excited to play us, if I\u2019m a Creighton coach. We have a lot to figure out in the next 24-36 hours if we\u2019re going to beat a really good team. Not good enough. Really poor.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, of course, Auburn lost to 14-seed Yale after winning the SEC Tournament. Then, Pearl directly called out Johni Broome and Chad Baker-Mazara. Broome, the SEC Player of the Year, scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, but certainly wasn\u2019t a dominant figure in the win by any means. Baker-Mazara scored only five points, shooting 1-9 from the field. It\u2019s his fourth-straight game scoring in single digits.<\/p>\n \u201cJohni and Chad have to be better. They have to be better in all aspects of the game. If they are not, we will not win. I\u2019d imagine coach will challenge them pretty hard right now. They didn\u2019t bring it tonight and I have no idea why. No idea,\u201d Pearl said. \u201cI thought the rest of the guys competed well. The rest were excited to be here, but when our two best players play like that, our chances of beating a really good team are going to go down. We have to find ways as a staff to get more out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Cardwell. One of the most energetic and charismatic players in Auburn history, in his own words, was \u201cpissed\u201d following Auburn\u2019 first-round win. Cardwell grabbed eight rebounds in the win, but that didn\u2019t matter much when he was asked about his feelings on advancing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to be better. We have to play on fire, we have to play pissed off. It\u2019s frustrating to see that we aren\u2019t playing pissed off. If we play like we did today, we are going to get beat. I\u2019m upset. I\u2019m upset,\u201d Cardwell said.<\/p>\n After a handful of answers to other questions, Cardwell then went back to his feelings on this team and its effort on Thursday. Buckle up, because Cardwell went off.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to man up. You can\u2019t go in and expect you\u2019re going to cover the spread. You can\u2019t think the other team is not going to show up. Teams are going to play desperate. These teams want to extend their season. We aren\u2019t playing hard. We. Need to play harder. That\u2019s all it is. We need to play harder and more aggressive. When we\u2019re clicking, when we\u2019re playing hard, when we\u2019re not slopping through stuff, when we\u2019re playing in a stance, no-one can beat us. It\u2019s frustrating,\u201d Cardwell said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lost to Texas A&M, we lost to Alabama, we lost to Tennessee because we aren\u2019t playing hard. We come out and we\u2019re still pissing away the opportunity, we have to stop doing that. You can\u2019t afford that. You have the option to go out as the best team in Auburn history or the biggest bust in the country. At some point, it has to click. What more is it going to take? <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to look back when I\u2019m 40, 50, 60, and be like, \u2018dang, I wish I would have gotten past the first weekend. I wish I would have played in the Final Four.\u2019 We\u2019re a great team, one of the greatest teams in the country, that\u2019s why we\u2019re the number one seed. We aren\u2019t playing like that anymore. I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to take to get there. We can have all the kumbyays, prayer meetings, all these things, but what\u2019s it going to take for somebody to buy in?\u201d<\/p>\n Auburn plays 9-seed Creighton on Saturday, and as Bruce Pearl said on Thursday evening, it will take a much better effort to advance to the Sweet 16 than what the Tigers displayed against Alabama State.<\/p>\n The post \u2018It was embarrassing\u2019: Auburn coach Steven Pearl, senior Dylan Cardwell challenge the Tigers to \u2018man up\u2019<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Listen, I\u2019ve been to a lot of Auburn practices over the years. I\u2019ve heard players…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE AUDIO RIGHT HERE.<\/a><\/h2>\n