1 BIG THING: SOPHOMORE IMPROVEMENT
Sophomore Allen Flanigan scored 23 points Saturday at Kentucky. It was his fourth 20-point game this season and the 19th time in 22 games he's scored in double figures. As a freshman last year, he scored in double figures just once in 31 games.
After averaging 3.2 points per game last year, Flanigan is putting up 14.3 points per contest this year – an improvement of 11.1, which is tops in the SEC.
Fellow sophomores Jaylin Williams and Devan Cambridge have also made big strides. Williams is fifth in the conference, scoring 10.7 points per game – up 8.3 from last year when he averaged just 2.4 points per game. Cambridge posted 4.2 points per game last year, and this year he's up to 8.2 per contest. Over the last 11 games, he's averaging 9.9 points a night.
"What Jaylin and Al and Devan are doing as sophomores now, it's a pretty big jump from their freshman year," Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said. "All three of them right now, a pretty big jump, taking advantage of the opportunity. We've got to keep building on that."
The Tigers are the youngest team in the country, averaging 0.75 years of experience, but with that youth comes opportunity. Flanigan, Williams and Cambridge have all been given an opportunity this season and elevated their game as a result. The scary part is there is still room for all three to grow.
"The potential for next year is real high," Williams said.
3 QUESTIONS WITH JAYLIN WILLIAMS
Q: How would you describe your game?
Williams: I'm an all-around player. Some nights I'll give you 20, but then I'll have four rebounds. But then some nights I'll have two points, and I'll have 10 or 12 rebounds. If I have a game where I don't score or don't get rebounds, I'll have eight assists. Where I'm struggling, I try to fix it. But if I'm struggling, I try to do something better in other areas whether that's offense or defense.
Q: What are the areas you need to work on to take that next step?
Williams: I would say defending a big in the post because I'm playing the 5 on the team, so most bigs are bigger and more physical. Just improving on that in the offseason and the rest of these games this season is going to be big for me.
Q: This team has fought through a lot of adversity. What has this season been like?
Williams: The first half of the season we didn't have a true point guard. We had Al playing point, we had JP (Justin Powell) playing point guard. And then when we played Ole Miss, we didn't have JP or Rife (Sharife Cooper), so Al had to play point, Jamal (Johnson) had to play point, I had to bring the ball up sometimes to break the press. Our goal for the rest of the season? We're going to finish strong and go into next year with our heads high.
1 KEY STAT: HISTORY AT RUPP
Last week, Bruce Pearl called Rupp Arena one of the great houses in all of basketball. "You're going to remember the games you played there," he said.
Well, freshman JT Thor might remember his performance Saturday for a long time. Thor became the only freshman in the last decade to have at least 24 points and nine rebounds in a road game at Rupp Arena. He's one of just four players overall to hold that stat line since at least 2010, joining Isiah Brown (ETSU), Brandon Edwards (UT Arlington) and Trendon Watford (LSU).
Sharife Cooper also made some history in his Rupp debut, becoming the only freshman since at least 2010 to have 14 points, eight assists and six rebounds in a game at Rupp Arena.
