Auburn’s Bruce Pearl has a message for his basketball team before its game at Kentucky
In the aftermath of Auburn’s latest men’s basketball game — a 78-74 home win over Ole Miss on Wednesday night that proved to be the last straw for former Ole Miss head coach Kermit Davis — Bruce Pearl wasn’t in a completely celebratory mood.
Pearl, now in his ninth season as Auburn’s head coach, spent a decent part of his six-minute, 30-second postgame press conference discussing the Tigers’ shortcomings in the win and how improvement must arrive in short order.
Auburn (19-9 overall, 9-6 SEC) plays at Kentucky at 4 p.m. Saturday inside Rupp Arena.
“They’re athletic, they’re strong. But Kentucky is bigger, stronger and more athletic,” Pearl said Wednesday night, comparing Ole Miss (2-13 in the SEC) to Kentucky (10-5 in league games).
“So we’re going to be up there in Rupp against probably the biggest, best offensive rebounding team in the league.”
On this point, Pearl is mostly correct.
UK is second in the SEC in total offensive rebounds with 374 (Tennessee has 379) and also second in the league in offensive rebounds per game with 13.4 (Tennessee has 13.5).
UK is also 19-4 this season when winning the rebounding battle.
Individually though, the Wildcats boast the league’s best rebounder in Oscar Tshiebwe, who has 90 more total rebounds than former Morehead State star and current Auburn big man Johni Broome in second (239).
On the offensive glass, Tshiebwe is also the league’s runaway leader: 133 offensive rebounds total and a whopping 5.1 offensive rebounds per game.
Even more impressive is the fact that Tshiebwe hasn’t even been at his rebounding best of late.
In last weekend’s rousing home win over Tennessee, Tshiebwe had just seven total rebounds and two offensive rebounds, both of which ranked second on the UK team behind Chris Livingston (10 total rebounds and three offensive boards).
In Wednesday night’s road win at Florida, Tshiebwe’s four total rebounds and two offensive rebounds both ranked third on the UK team behind Livingston and Jacob Toppin.
Perhaps adding to Pearl’s concern level about Saturday afternoon’s fight for loose balls is the fact that Auburn was out-rebounded by Ole Miss, 38-28, on Wednesday night.
Ole Miss had 17 offensive rebounds in that game, and Pearl even offered a premonition for the Kentucky game based on that total.
“If we rebound like we did tonight, we’re going to get beat by 40 (at Kentucky),” Pearl said.
Saturday
Auburn at Kentucky
When: 4 p.m.
TV: CBS-27
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Auburn 19-9 (9-6 SEC); Kentucky 19-9 (10-5)
Series: Kentucky leads 96-23
Last meeting: Auburn won 80-71 on Jan. 22, 2022, at Auburn, Ala.
This story was originally published February 24, 2023 at 11:31 AM.
