No bad blood between Auburn and former Tiger Aden Holloway

When Auburn mens basketball won the SEC Tournament and won 27 games last season, there was a freshman Aden Holloway handling the Tigers point guard duties as he started in 26 of Auburns 35 games.

Trying to find his footing as a freshman, Holloway had an up-and-down year with the Tigers averaging 7.3 points per game but shooting just 31.8% from the field and 30.2% from the three-point line.

One year later, Holloway is across Auburn enemy lines on the other side of the state, enjoying an efficient year off the bench for Nate Oats Alabama team, ranked No.

2 in the country only behind Auburn.

However, there seems to be no bad blood between members of the Auburn basketball team and Holloway ahead of Auburn and Alabamas highly anticipated matchup in Tuscaloosa this Saturday.

Aden was a very popular player on our team.

He's got great friends in our locker room, and I'm sure that's gonna be different, playing against someone our guys had a great friendship with.

I think things have worked out really well for both, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said.

Aden's playing great, his confidence is up.

He's one of the most dangerous players coming off the bench in the SEC.

Holloway has vastly improved from his freshman season now at Alabama averaging 11.8 points per game in 24 games all off the bench.

Hes only taking one more shot per game at Alabama than he did at Auburn, but his efficiency numbers are much better in his sophomore season at Alabama.

Holloway never found his shot with Auburn, but with the Crimson Tide, the sophomore guard is shooting 48.5% from the field and 42.1% from deep.

In conference play, Holloway has hit exactly half of his three-point attempts to give him the second-best three-point shooting percentage during SEC play.

Given the success Auburns offense has seen this season, Pearl and the Tigers coaching staff obviously responded well to the departure of Holloway in their retooling of Auburns guard position and the rest of the roster.

Pearl believes that Holloways departure plus the additions Auburn brought in made for a win-win situation between the two parties.

I think things have worked out pretty well for Auburn too, Pearl said.

I think the guys that we brought in have helped us, so I look at it as a win-win.

While Pearl acknowledged that theres no question that hes going to want to beat Auburn, Pearl was only happy to see his former point guard excelling elsewhere.

But like I said, Im happy that hes playing well, and hes at a great spot, Pearl said.

Six rotational players on Auburns current team played with Holloway a season ago, experiencing the highs of winning an SEC Championship with him and the lows of an NCAA Tournament first round exit with him as well.

Even though Holloway now suits up for Auburns biggest rival, Auburn guard Denver Jones, like Pearl, only showed support for the former Tiger.

He's a brother, always will be a brother, Jones said.

Obviously, he played here, so we have some familiarity about his game.

We know a little bit of how he plays.

It'll be fun playing against him again.

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