Steven Pearl reacts to lack of foul calls on drives vs. Alabama

On Saturday, Auburn fell 96-92 to Alabama. After the game, Auburn head coach Steven Pearl remained neutral when asked if he felt like the officials missed calls on the Tigers’ drives to the basket.

“We took 43 2-point attempts. I thought we attacked the paint pretty hard,” Pearl said. “I’ve got to watch the film and see if there were some possessions where we didn’t get fouls. I thought we did a pretty good job attacking the rim, playing off two (feet) and trying to finish through contact. I’ll have to watch the film and see if it should have been more. Not really sure.”

As Pearl mentioned, Auburn got plenty of shots up inside the paint. In turn, the team shot 22 free throws in the loss, making 17. In comparison, Alabama shot 23 despite shooting seven fewer 2-pointers in the contest.

For reference, Auburn averages 28.4 free-throw attempts per game, the second-most in college basketball. Auburn was called for one more foul than Alabama in the in-state showdown.

Any potential missed calls were far from the only reason for Auburn’s loss. The Tigers shot just 9-28 (32%) from 3-point range in the loss.

Additionally, Auburn’s bench was lackluster, only contributing seven points in the game. Meanwhile, Alabama’s bench combined for four times as many points. Nonetheless, Steven Pearl isn’t concerned about the team’s offense.

“Our bench production has been better,” Pearl said. “Elyjah [Freeman] has been a spark, but him being in foul trouble, that’s where a lot of the production comes from. But the offense has nothing to do with it.

“Like, we scored 92 points. That should be enough to win any game in our league. Tahaad [Pettiford] had a better offensive performance. KO was making some shots. Four of our best offensive players had pretty good nights. Had nothing to do with our offense, has everything to do with our defense. If we want to win games, we’ll sit down and guard like we did when he had that four-game stretch a couple weeks ago.”

With the loss, Auburn fell to 14-9 overall and 5-5 in conference play this season. The loss was Auburn’s second in a row. The team fell 77-69 to Tennessee in their previous outing.

Life isn’t about to get any easier for the Tigers. On Tuesday, Auburn will square off against No. 15 Vanderbilt at 7 p.m. ET. The game will air live on the SEC Network.