At a slump’s worst — when he’d made just two 3-pointers over his last five games, when every miss was met with a frustrated stare toward the roof as if to ask how this possibly could keep happening — Aden Holloway started coming out on the floor first for pregame warm-ups.
On Feb. 17 before Auburn played Kentucky, Holloway worked on 3-point shooting drills with graduate assistant Bryant Smith. Smith guarded Holloway beyond the 3-point line as many defenses had done against the smooth-shooting freshman. It was an adjustment collegiate defenses made for the former five-star recruit that he hadn’t yet adapted to.
So he practiced. And against Kentucky, he still didn’t make a 3-pointer. He shot 0-3 from deep. Six games now with only two 3s.
But he kept shooting. Head coach Bruce Pearl has said often that he never thought Holloway took bad shots, he just missed them. But he missed them to the point of shooting 25% on 3s in SEC play. Pearl maintained that every time Holloway shot the ball, he thought it was going in. But they didn’t go in.
“I don’t know,” Holloway said before the SEC Tournament thinking back to his struggles. “I don’t know what it was, but I’m glad we’re out of it.”
He closed the year making nine 3-pointers over Auburn’s final 11 games. Five of them came against Georgia — a pause in the skid for the most 3s he’s made in a game this season.
It was a good feeling, Holloway said, to see the ball go in the basket that night. It was a reprieve during his struggles.
Holloway was brought to Auburn because of how well he shot the ball as a high schooler. He was to follow in a line of high-volume 3-point shooting Auburn guards under Pearl. His jump shot was so pure — traced back to teaching himself in a dining room turned basketball court in his mother’s Charlotte home — that he quickly emerged at the beginning of the season with performances off the bench that earned him a spot within the first two weeks of the season in the starting lineup. He made 15 3-pointers in Auburn’s first five games. He attempted more than six 3-pointers per game over Auburn’s first 20 games and made a third of them.
So defenses adjusted to him. They saw Holloway — a smaller guard listed at 6-foot-1, 178 pounds on Auburn’s roster — and dared him to drive to the rim. More than 66% of Holloway’s shots this season were 3-pointers and only 16% were layups, per CBB Analytics. Holloway also made his layups at a far below-average rate.
The defensive game plan against him was working.
But when his shots weren’t falling in SEC play, it was a reminder that he’s just a freshman. That he’s not expected to have all this figured out yet as he tried piloting one of the top 15 offenses in the country on a team that has realistic expectations to make a run in March.
“I’ve never experienced that ever in my basketball career,” Holloway said.
Yet what Holloway has done is something not often seen in a freshman who entered a school with a rating as high as Holloway: he took on a role that didn’t need him to score, that wouldn’t make him the star and just a facilitator of an offense. His scoring would be a bonus.
Holloway leads Auburn in assist-to-turnover ratio. As a freshman. And an even more uncommon answer for a freshman of his status: he’s proud of that.
“I take a lot of pride in it,” Holloway said. “I’ve just been seeing how our team is and how we operate. I really don’t have to do as much scoring.”
Over Auburn’s final 13 games — where it entered the most difficult portion of SEC play and went 8-5 in that stretch — Holloway attempted fewer than four 3-pointers per game. On average, he made 0.8 per game.
Pearl has frequently discussed Holloway improving in other aspects of his game that don’t require him to put the ball in the basket. He knows Holloway can do that, even if he’s done so inconsistently.
Asked what he’s gotten better at and Holloway said his defense and his passing. His understanding of the game. His ability to split time with fellow point guard Tre Donaldson. Well, “all other facets of the game that’s not scoring,” he said.
He said he works on his defense every day, maybe the most maligned part of his game. He said it’s taken him having a different mental approach to play defense focusing on having fun. If he’s having fun, he said, his best basketball comes with it.
But it’s hard to have fun when the thing he’s best at — shooting — isn’t working with him as it has for so much of his basketball life. It was evident to see in his face at times on the court near the end of the season.
His problems weren’t all solved by scoring 15 points at Georgia in late February. But it was more of a reminder of what he can be.
He is playing better defense now. He is still among Auburn’s most productive players despite not scoring like he once was.
He’s a freshman. There’s still a lot to learn. So his pregame drills and routines stay the same. He’s regimented.
And he’s going to keep shooting.
Matt Cohen covers sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]