Devan Cambridge needs to find consistency

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Devan Cambridge scored 21 points against the No. 1 team in the SEC, LSU, but he isn’t a starter. Cambridge shot 70 percent from three, his seven three-pointers the most of any player on the floor, yet he’s still not even the sixth player in Auburn’s starting rotation. He scored the third-most points on the team, more than three other starters, and it’s the second time in six games he’s scored more than 20 points. After he made his first shot against LSU, every time he stepped onto the floor, the Jungle roared. They called out his name after the game. Children waited to get his autograph. Bruce Pearl knows the question is coming — when is he going to start starting him? And he already has the answer ready: “When he keeps playing like that.” Rewinding No. 11 Auburn’s win against No. 18 LSU The talent needed to start is definitely there. Just before the season started, when Cambridge was in a boot, Pearl said Cambridge should be a part of the regular rotation despite the injury setback. Cambridge played in the first game of the season, and he made a moderate contribution to the win, adding six points and three rebounds. It wasn’t until the CSUN game, when he hit two three’s, scored 10 points and made three rebounds, that he started to stand out. He followed it up with a nine-point performance against Colgate. But then Cambridge disappeared. For the next 12 games, Cambridge scored five points or less and had one rebound or less. In five of those he didn’t score at all. The South Carolina game seemed to come out of nowhere. His 26 points came after two scoreless performances, and they were more than he had scored in all 12 of those games combined. In the first 17 games, he had gone 7-28 from three but went 6-9 that night. The five rebounds he came down with were the most he had all season. READ: Three takeaways from Auburn’s comeback against LSU for first place in the SEC “I have said that, someday, he could be our best player,” Pearl said after that game. “I’ve said that.” When Cambridge next hit the floor at Auburn Arena in the Tigers game against Iowa State, the fans let out a loud cheer. Cambridge went 0-2 with three rebounds in the 14 minutes he played that game. For the next three games, Cambridge went scoreless and played less than 10 minutes in each game. But all that was forgiven when he hit the floor against LSU. Once again, Cambridge’s performance was key to a big home win. With Danjel Purifoy out sick with the flu, Cambridge knew he’d have to fill in. Pearl had asked Cambridge before the South Carolina game “what are you waiting for?” and told him he had to step up. Cambridge knew he’d have to step up again. Along with Samir Doughty and J’Von McCormick, he helped spark a comeback, and then he helped build the lead in overtime that ended with a one-point win. His performance earned him 18 more minutes of time than his typical 11.5 minutes a game. Some of those minutes were given to him by fellow freshmen Allen Flanigan. When his turn in the rotation came around in the second half, Flanigan told the coaches to leave Cambridge in because he was hot. Both the LSU game and the South Carolina game are important because they show Pearl that Cambridge is capable of greatness if he goes out with confidence. “You can see, when he’s going he’s got no fear,” Pearl said. But Pearl has already said that players earn game minutes over a long period of time rather than through short trials. Cambridge has two great games, two good games and a long list of mediocre and poor games. The stat sheets also don’t show that he has work to do on the defensive end. “But he needs to be able to find a way, and he will, he’s still young, to find a way to play more consistently,” Pearl said. “But he gives us a dimension, another weapon.”