AUBURN — In every game Auburn has lost this season, minus Georgia, the Tigers have either been in the lead or in contention to come away with a win. Head coach Hugh Freeze recently expressed frustration at his team's apparent inability to secure a victory, something he said hasn't happened to him during his decades-long career.
“That we've not found a way to win every single game that we've been in — in the SEC and the Cal game — every single one of them,” Freeze said in his weekly teleconference. “You can't watch the tape and say you didn't have a realistic chance of winning those games. Every single one of those. And we haven't found a way to do that. And that's the most frustrating thing.
“I've never had a season in my 32 years of coaching that not a single game has ended up going our way in the end. And we're just not making enough plays in critical moments for that to happen. And it's really hard to put your finger on it,” he added.
To put it into perspective, Auburn has had two multi-possession leads late in the third quarter this season and lost both games. This leads to the Tigers' 1-8 record in their last nine games against power-conference opponents; seven straight have been losses.
Auburn can find a way to turn the corner as November quickly approaches, but coaches and players alike are in dire need of developing a winning attitude, as Freeze mentioned earlier in the week that he feels his team is playing “not to lose” rather than to win.
“At some point, we've got to grow up and learn how to win,” Freeze said. “And obviously, I've got to learn how to coach them in a way that gives them the confidence to play - to win And not ‘Hey, try to hold on,’ and it feels kind of like maybe that's what we've been trying to do.”
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