Auburn will likely be without its best player when the Tigers host No. 25 Tennessee on Saturday as Sharife Cooper is listed as doubtful for the matchup.
He didn’t practice yesterday,” Bruce Pearl said on Friday. “He was there all day, he shot around a little bit. He is in the training room as many hours as Clark Pearson will allow him to be in the training room. You know, he had a pretty good ankle sprain, and they typically take a week or three or four. He turned it pretty good. But, he’s actually bounced back and we’ll see.”
Here’s everything else Pearl had to say ahead of the Tennessee game.
Opening statement…
“We’re getting ready for Tennessee. It’s been a good rivalry the last few years because the games that we’ve played against Tennessee have been meaningful. Tennessee right now, they’re the third-most efficient defense in the country. They lead the league in scoring defense, allowing only 63 points a game. While we’ve been focused on the fact that we need to make so much progress defensively because we were scoring 80 points a game – now without Sharife (Cooper), we know we score about 10 less. How many less do you score against Tennessee? What do you have to hold Tennessee down to now to have a chance to win? Our ability to try and defend them down is going to be really important to our ability to be able to have a chance to win this basketball game. Victory Bailey is playing great right now. He really shoots the ball well. That helps their offense. Their two freshmen, Keon Johnson and Jaden Springer, they’re accounting for about 42 percent of their offense in the last six games. That was probably the best freshman backcourt in the country. We had both of those guys on campus for visits. Jaden was somebody that I was recruiting when I was at Tennessee. He was coming to camp when he was just a middle-schooler. I don’t think he visited many places. He always kind of wanted to be a Tennessee Vol. And then Keon Johnson’ mom is Conswella Sparrow who was a great player for our women’s program here at Auburn, and she’s still a great Auburn woman. But Keon grew up right there in central Tennessee, in the middle part of the state. We just couldn’t get him to break the allegiance because he’s a loyal kid and he wanted to play for the home team. We get the pleasure of playing against a couple guys we recruited really hard for many years.”
On AUTLIVE…
“This Saturday is the AUTLIVE game. You guys, I’ll say it in advance, thank you to all of you for continuing to deliver the message. I know we’re making a difference. Last year during the AUTLIVE game, we were able to partner with the Mike Slive Foundation and a prostate screening company up in Birmingham and we screened a couple hundred men over the age of 40. About five percent of those guys got information that they had some things that they needed to check into, which means we saved lives a year ago. Now with COVID, we obviously can’t do that today, but the t-shirts, the prayer bracelets, AUTLIVE.com is the way that we can continue to create that awareness campaign and raise the money that will go to these facilities: the Russell Medical Foundation in Alexander City, Camp Smile-a-Mile in Birmingham that’s for focusing on kids, Coosa Valley Medical Center in Sylacauga, the Children’s Hospital, one of the greatest children’s hospitals in our country in Birmingham, East Alabama Medical Center right here in Auburn/Opelika, Joy to Life focusing primarily on breast cancer in Montgomery, the aTeam ministries also in Birmingham in Homewood, also focusing on children and childhood cancers, the Cancer Wellness Foundation, the biggest one in Montgomery, and then Russell Hill up in Huntsville, Alabama. So you can see how we spread out throughout the state, and the funding will go to patients that are battling cancer that have a hard time making their ends meet financially. I appreciate everybody’s support.”
On Sharife Cooper’s status…
“I think he is doubtful. He didn’t practice yesterday. He was there all day, he shot around a little bit. He is in the training room as many hours as Clark Pearson will allow him to be in the training room. You know, he had a pretty good ankle sprain, and they typically take a week or three or four. He turned it pretty good. But, he’s actually bounced back and we’ll see. He obviously won’t play until he’s ready and that has nothing to do with who he is or how great a player he is. We would treat everybody the exact same way. The only other caveat that I could consider would be that obviously at this point we’re not playing to get in the tournament. So if he had to strap it up to try to play the last game to get a win to get in, or you know it was going to be something as far as a seeding, maybe. He’ll get back as fast as he can, but he won’t get back until he is ready.”
On telling players to step up on defense due to less scoring…
“Offensively, maybe I’ll put the ball in his (Sharife Cooper) hands and create space and ball screens and pace. There’s nothing I can do offensively better for us that statistically makes greater sense than to do that every play. We don’t have that now. We won’t be as high scoring and we won’t be as dangerous offensively, so we have to find a way with what we have. But, we have no choice but to do a better job defensively. As a result of Sharife not playing, we’ll be bigger and longer. We’re going to have to do a better job at guarding Tennessee. The issue is turnovers. Tennessee does a nice job of turning you over. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out they’re probably going to press a little bit more and trap us up a little bit more and try to create some offense from their defense because we don’t have a point guard. I’m sure we’ll get plenty of that.”
On Lior Berman and Preston Cook getting more reps…
“I would anticipate those guys having a little bigger role. I think the challenge is we need them to practice. Yesterday, they had to play Tennessee a little bit. I need to play against those guys yesterday in order to play Tennessee tomorrow. They didn’t have a chance to get a lot of reps with us. They’ll get some today. I don’t think it’s about reps in practice. They get enough reps in practice. It’s about game reps and game minutes. They’re both ready, They’re both prepared. They’re both really good players. I’m excited for them to be able to get some playing time and maybe get a couple rotations during the course of the game, not just in foul trouble, but actually regular rotations.”
On playing Allen Flanigan at point guard and how that’s helping him in the future…
“Asking him to do some things with the ball, to play make, I think it’s great. It’s gives a player that’s off the ball perspective on just how much is one the point guard. I’ll give you an example. Bryce Brown always wanted to play point guard. He wanted to be recruited as a point guard, he wanted to play point guard, he thought in the NBA that was going to be his position. There were times where I would call plays for the point guard and that would bother him a little bit because he’s a great scorer, he’s a great player and he wanted to win. It was all good stuff and he was all in the right place. But, what he didn’t realize until I played him a little bit at the position that the play calls for the point guard aren’t necessarily for the point guard to score, but for the point guard to get the ball to the other guys to score, which Bryce obviously liked to do. There was a part of him that probably said, ‘you can have this.’ I’m sure Allen in playing the position, there’s a part of him that has a greater appreciation for what Justin Powell was doing or what Sharife (Cooper) had to do. ‘Why are you calling Sharife’s number all the time?’ I’m calling Sharife’s number all the time to get you a shot or get you in an advantage/disadvantage for you to go make a play.”