Already playing without starting big man KeShawn Murphy in last week’s win over Merrimack, the No. 22 Auburn Tigers will likely be without him again on Tuesday night when Steven Pearl’s team takes on the Wofford Terriers at 7 p.m. at Neville Arena. Dealing with an injured knee in the preseason that he aggravated in the exhibition vs. Oklahoma State, Murphy injured an ankle in the opener against Bethune-Cookman. With Houston coming up on Sunday and needing Murphy to be healthy for the rest of this season, Pearl said they’re hopeful they won’t have to use him in Tuesday night’s game.
“Murph is progressing from his ankle injury,” Pearl said. “He will play in an emergency situation, if we need him to, against Wofford. But he’s still coming back from that injury, so we don’t want to rush him back. As of right now, unless there’s another injury or foul trouble, we’re gonna try and not play Murph. If we need him, I think he’ll be available. But we’re gonna try to continue to get Mek (Emeka Oporum) and Sebastian (Williams-Adams) and Keyshawn Hall and Filip (Jovic) the majority of the minutes at the 4 and 5.”
The player with the size to help the most eventually is Oporum. At 7-0, he’s got the length to match up with the bigger teams that Auburn faces this season but he continues to struggle with the physicality at this level. Pearl said he did some good things against a smaller lineup the last time out, but has to continue to grow for this team.
“And Mek was really good in the Merrimack game,” Pearl said. “For Mek, not every team is gonna be 6-7 and under at every position and play a zone. I thought Mek was a beneficiary of them playing in zone. We had guys that caught it at the high post. But, credit to Mek: He was at the right place. They threw it to the rim, and he finished. He got a couple of nice blocked shots on the back line right there.
“For him, I talked about it last week, it’s all about his confidence. If Mek can be confident, he can do a lot of good things. Each week in practice, he continues to work, continues to grind, continues to try to get better. As the game continues to slow down for him, as he continues to grow in his confidence, he’ll continue to be effective when he’s out there.”
Wofford plays just one player over 6-8 in its regular rotation and he’s only averaging 7.5 minutes per game this season. That should allow Opurum to once again be able to do some things in the middle without Murphy on the court. The last time out the junior college transfer had 11 points, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks in just under 20 minutes in the win over Merrimack.
Tuesday night’s game can be seen on SEC Network+.