{"id":322124,"date":"2025-10-21T21:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T21:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/322124\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T21:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T21:17:13","slug":"what-lessons-did-auburn-learn-vs-oklahoma-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/322124\/","title":{"rendered":"What lessons did Auburn learn vs. Oklahoma State?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>(Zach Bland\/Auburn Tigers)<\/p>\n

AUBURN \u2014\u00a0On the trip back from Birmingham to Auburn last Wednesday night, Steven Pearl <\/strong>gave Bruce Pearl <\/strong>a call.<\/p>\n

Auburn\u2019s old head coach had a courtside seat to the unofficial debut of Auburn\u2019s new head coach. The elder Pearl got to be a fan, standing and cheering for the Tigers team he helped build all the way to the final buzzer of an overtime thriller.<\/p>\n

But, after Auburn\u2019s 97-95 exhibition loss to Oklahoma State<\/a>, he got to give insight as a head coach who had won over 700 games to his son and successor. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just, like, \u2018Hey, what are some of your thoughts?\u2019\u201d Steven Pearl said Tuesday. \u201cHe was good. He said, \u2018You guys obviously have pieces, and that\u2019s really all you can as for at this point in the year.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s up to Pearl and his staff to put those pieces together.<\/p>\n

A mostly brand-new Auburn roster got to measure itself up against a potential NCAA Tournament team in Oklahoma State in the middle of October. It will get a chance at another one a week from Thursday night, when it faces Memphis in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Then, the games start to count for real: Three home paycheck games to open the new era, followed by a return to Birmingham to face a Houston team that some believe might be the best in all of college basketball this season.<\/p>\n

The biggest benefit of the new-school schedule for Auburn is that this team, led by a first-time head coach, gets to do a lot of learning between its two exhibitions. When the Tigers tip it off at State Farm Arena, it will have been two whole weeks since the game against the Cowboys. There won\u2019t be a gap like that the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

Auburn \u201cspent two full days watching film\u201d from the Oklahoma State game. Pearl said he had 74 different defensive clips to go over with his team. Offensive coordinator Mike Burgomaster <\/strong>\u201cprobably had 60-something\u201d for his end of the floor.<\/p>\n

The Tigers know they have a lot of work to do before the trip to play Memphis, much less a non-conference schedule that includes Houston, Purdue, Arizona, NC State and a loaded Players Era Festival field. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it was encouraging for Pearl to see how well Auburn practiced Monday afternoon back at Neville Arena. He called it the best practice he\u2019s seen from All-SEC point guard Tahaad Pettiford<\/strong>. He also praised former Big 12 top scorer Keyshawn Hall<\/strong>, who is \u201cdoing a great job of doing the small things that leaders really need to do to help a team be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys responded well,\u201d Pearl said.<\/p>\n

What were the biggest lessons from Auburn\u2019s exhibition against Oklahoma State, and what\u2019s the health status of the Tigers\u2019 top two center options? Let\u2019s dive into all of that in this week\u2019s edition of The Stretch 4.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(Zach Bland\/Auburn Tigers)<\/p>\n

The only thing that would have been a bigger negative for Auburn from the exhibition against Oklahoma State than the result itself was a serious injury to KeShawn Murphy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

With 4:22 left in the second half and Auburn trailing by four, Murphy slipped on a wet spot on the Boutwell Auditorium floor while trying to help up teammate Sebastian Williams-Adams<\/strong>. The freshman ended up landing on top of Murphy, who had to be helped off the floor and did not return to action.<\/p>\n

Murphy avoided a serious injury, with Auburn classifying it as a \u201cmild hip flexor strain\u201d and a \u201cmild MCL sprain.\u201d As Pearl noted Tuesday, it could have been a whole lot worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Zach Bland\/Auburn Tigers) AUBURN \u2014\u00a0On the trip back from Birmingham to Auburn last Wednesday night, Steven Pearl gave…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":322125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-322124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115414240199428109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}