Oct. 12, 2016
AUBURN, Ala. - Redshirt freshman Danjel Purifoy had 22 points, 6 rebounds, 5 steals and 3 assists while freshman Jared Harper added 18 points on 4-of-9 3-pointers to lead Auburn in its second intrasquad scrimmage on Wednesday.
Sophomore Bryce Brown had 16 points and three steals on 2-of-6 treys while freshman Anfernee McLemore notched a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds, including six offensive.
"When we went best on best, both games came down to a last second shot," said head coach Bruce Pearl. "Which tells me there's not a tremendous separation because I kind of evened the teams out in both scrimmages. They ended up even. It was good from the standpoint.
"We're not very big, and you can see that, but we're fast, we're athletic, we shoot it pretty well. I think that we're deep. I'm hoping that our style of play will bother opponents, but we have to gang tackle, we have to gang rebound. If we can sure some of that up, we're off to a pretty good start."
The Tigers had four scrimmages, three 10 minutes each and a five minute one to close it out.
"It was a high tempo game," said McLemore. "We ran a lot. We went through the offense, and we just really worked on everything and got better. I felt like I experienced success rebounding the ball. I was able to get my teammates good looks. I want to work on my shot of the dribble, like dribble pull ups, just going to the basket more and just becoming smarter on the court."
Graduate transfer guard Ronnie Johnson chipped in 14 points, including 8-of-9 from the foul line, along with 7 assists, 4 rebounds and 2 steals. Senior T.J. Dunans filled up the stat sheet with 13 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks and a steal.
Freshman Mustapha Heron had 12 points, shooting 5-of-10 from the floor, while sophomore Horace Spencer had 10 points, 8 rebounds and 2 steals. Grad transfer LaRon Smith totaled 11 points, 4 rebounds, 3 blocks, 3 steals and 2 assists while going 3-of-4 from the foul line. Smith, a 26.5 percent foul shooter a year ago at Bethune-Cookman, is 15-of-19 (.789) from the foul line in the two scrimmage.
Sophomore New Williams totaled 10 points on 3-of-8 3-pointers while junior TJ Lang added 9 points on 3-of-6 treys to go along with 3 rebounds, a block and steal.
"I felt like it went really well," said Lang. "This year, we're playing a whole new tempo, and it's exciting because we have a whole bunch of athletic guys that can get up and down the court. We're starting to share the ball, and trust each other a lot.
"Multiple guys scored a lot. I felt like I played okay. I missed a little more shots than I wanted to miss, but I was able to round my team up and get a win for those two games."
The Tigers shot 53.8 percent from the floor, 35.1 percent (13-of-37) from 3-point range and 86.7 percent (26-of-30) from the foul line.
Auburn, which sold out of season tickets in back-to-back seasons, both under Pearl, for the first time in school history, has season tickets available at AubTix.com or calling 855-AUB-2010.