3 takeaways from Auburn’s 64-49 win over Kent Meridian
The Auburn High School boys basketball team defeated visiting Kent-Meridian on Tuesday night, 64-49. Here are three takeaways from the Trojans’ win.
AUBURN IS LIVING UP TO THE EXPECTATIONS
Led by a strong group of sophomores during the 2019-20, Auburn burst onto the scene and advanced to the Class 4A state tournament. This season, the Trojans — now in 3A — aren’t sneaking up on anyone. But the weight of newfound expectation hasn’t hindered Auburn, which moved to 11-0 on the season with Tuesday night’s win.
Auburn led by two after the first quarter, but started to pull away as the game wore on, leading 28-21 at half and 44-30 after the third period.
“I think we came out a little slow,” said junior Kaden Hansen, who scored 17 points in the win, including three 3-pointers. “Every game, we either come out really good or really slow. But we always get it going in the second quarter. It always starts on defense. Once we get everything going on defense, it all starts flowing, shots start going down, everything just starts flowing together.”
Coach Ryan Hansen gave credit to Kent Meridian’s defense.
“They made us grind,” he said. “It felt like a grinder, a little bit. I think it was our lowest scoring output of the year, so we give them credit for doing that.”
Kent Meridian’s Jaylen Stepney scored a game-high 21 points in the loss for the Royals.
THE TROJANS ARE PLENTY DEEP
Junior Tre Blassingame, who was a first-team all-league selection in the NPSL as a sophomore, didn’t play on Tuesday night, due to a sprained ankle. Neither did junior guard Dae’Kwon Watson, another all-league returner. But Auburn didn’t miss a beat.
6-foot-3 junior guard Maleek Arington, who holds a Pac-12 offer from WSU, scored a team-high 19 points in the win. Hansen scored 17, while sophomore Ryan Mpouli scored nine, senior Amar Rivers scored eight and freshman Luvens Valcin — who came off the bench and provided a major spark for Auburn — scored seven.
Opposing defenses aren’t able to key on one player to slow Auburn’s attack. It’s a pick-your-poison type scenario.
“It makes us very tough to defend,” Arington said. “People look at rankings and all that, and they’ll try to key on me and (Blassingame). But guys like Kaden — he’s our leading scorer. So like, they’ve got to start guarding him, he’s hitting threes. Then when they go out on him … we have a bunch of people who score the ball. It’s hard to guard just one of us. You have to guard all of us.”
Kaden Hansen said the team’s depth makes it a special group.
“It doesn’t matter who’s out, we have such a deep bench and it’s so nice,” he said. “We don’t have to play our best game every single game. We have people behind us who can come in, fill jobs and do the same thing we do.”
Ryan Hansen said it’s the deepest team he’s ever had in his 19 years coaching at Auburn.
“I count my blessings,” he said. “It’s a great luxury. We can put five guys on the floor that can all handle it, they can all shoot it. They have high basketball IQ’s. They’re pretty good athletes, too. It’s definitely a luxury. ... It’s just a really fun group, too. Great group of kids. They really love to play for each other.”
AUBURN AND FEDERAL WAY ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE
If Auburn wins the 3A NPSL, which seems like a formality at this point, they’ll get a game against the 4A NPSL winner in a crossover league championship game. Federal Way is 8-0 on the season and should win its league. Last season, the teams split in four meetings, 2-2, with Federal Way winning the postseason matchup. With no state tournament in play this year, a playoff-like season finale against a tough opponent would be welcome.
“We want to play them so bad,” Arington said. “After last year, when we played them at Mount Tahoma, we played a terrible game. That’ll be a good game, they’re a good team.”
Auburn split last year, when its corps were sophomores. Kaden Hansen said he thinks another year of experience would be beneficial against the Eagles.
“That’s what we want,” he said. “I want to play them. We played them as underclassmen, when they had upperclassmen. It’s always been close games. We beat them a couple times, they beat us a couple times. Now that we’re upperclassmen, I want to play them and get our shot at them.”
This story was originally published June 15, 2021 at 10:27 PM.
