Tennessee basketball: Auburn weirdly obsessed with rooting against Justin Powell

One of the things we should always be sensitive to at the college level is a player’s decision about where he or she wants to spend his or her career. Commitments and transfers don’t deserve scorn. Well, Auburn Tigers fans and players don’t see it that way with Tennessee basketball forward Justin Powell.

Initially reported by Fly War Eagle, there is clearly some bitterness left over from Powell’s decision to leave Bruce Pearl for Rick Barnes. After Powell struggled Tuesday night in the Vols’ loss to the Texas Tech Red Raiders, scoring 0 points in eight minutes, Auburn Twitter had a field day.

Ignoring some of his previous production, players and fans alike decided to troll him on Twitter. They genuinely tried to pretend they didn’t care they lost him to Tennessee basketball while relishing in his lack of production against Texas Tech.

The trolling of Powell by Auburn fans actually began before he struggled in that game. There’s plenty of evidence of that on Twitter too, but sure, we’ll pretend they don’t really care that they lost him to Rocky Top.

Where it really got interesting, though, was when Auburn junior guard Devan Cambridge got on and pledged, with his response to a tweet, that he would posterize Powell. Then Auburn Twitter got all excited about the possibility.

There’s always a little bit of fun at the expense of players who leave a program, but the Auburn community is weirdly obsessively mad at Powell for joining Tennessee basketball. Also, their points don’t make much sense.

Powell started seven of the 10 games he played with Auburn before suffering a season-ending injury. He’s more of a role player this year, starting one time in seven games, but he’s still averaging just over eight points a game. It’s not like he’s had some huge drop-off.

Did they forget that Powell hit all five of his three-point attempts two games before? Are they going to ignore the fact that he’s still shooting over 41 percent from beyond the arc for the year? He’s taking on a different role but still highly productive.

In fact, Powell’s true shooting percentage is slightly up, and his PER, while down two points, is skewed by him returning from injury and missing one game due to an illness. His box plus minus and wins shares per 48 minutes are both up.

If there’s one criticism, it’s on Barnes for only playing Powell eight minutes in that game. The 6’6″ 205-pound guard is one of Tennessee basketball’s most versatile backcourt players, and when the team is in a shooting slump, they could use him a lot more. However, Auburn’s criticism of him makes absolutely no sense.