Kansas Basketball: 3 Keys to victory against Auburn in Round of 32
By Chris Kern
Defend The Three-Point Line
This is an Auburn team that is very reliant on the three-point line. They did a good job in this area against a really good Northeastern team, but the Tigers are a different animal. They have so many guys that can knock down shots from three-point range and they use that to their advantage.
Auburn made 12 three-pointers in their win over New Mexico State which is just above their 11.3 average. A large portion of their offense and three-point shooting comes from their star backcourt. Jared Harper and Bryce Brown are one of the most talented guard duos in college basketball.
The way they can fill it up in a hurry when they’re playing well is something very few players can do. Through the first 35 games of the season, Brown is averaging 15.8 points while Harper is scoring 15.2 points per game. Harper attacks the basket a little bit more than Brown but they both shoot a lot of three-pointers.
Those are the two guys Kansas has to keep in check. They’re going to shoot the ball a lot so expect them to put up big numbers, but they need to make sure they don’t have efficient games. I expect Kansas to throw a lot of different guys at them defensively.
Devon Dotson will probably matchup with Harper the whole time he is on the floor. He has been very good defensively guarding top point guards during the season such as Barry Brown of Kansas State so I’m sure Bill Self trust him in this matchup as well.
It gets tricky when deciding who should guard Bryce Brown though. They have a few options but they all provide some disadvantages. The likely candidate to at least start off on him is Quentin Grimes, he has been good defensively for much of the season, but he has struggled at times as well.
The Jayhawks best defender is forward Marcus Garrett. He is more than capable of guarding either of these guards, but then it will be tough for them to guard some of the other players such as Mclemore or Okeke since Garrett likely won’t be in unless he is playing as a small ball power forward alongside Dedric Lawson or another Kansas big.