Observations: Alabama 93, Auburn 91 (OT)
A few familiar issues came back to haunt the Tigers, who missed out on clinching their best regular season ever with a last-second loss.
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
AUBURN — The nets inside Neville Arena were left intact Saturday afternoon.
With a win, Auburn could have clinched its definitive best-ever regular season — both in terms of overall victories and SEC victories. Auburn could have also celebrated a season sweep of rival Alabama and gotten one step closer to solidifying its spot at the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament in a couple of weeks.
Unlike their last two titles under Bruce Pearl, one brought out the ladders for the Tigers this time. The only visual evidence of Auburn’s 2025 SEC regular-season championship was either silently hanging from the rafters or listed on any leftover rally towels in the stands.
“We didn't cut nets down tonight, and we didn't have a celebration,” Pearl said afterwards. “Because you know what? We lost the contest.”
Auburn lost an absolute thriller, an instant classic between two teams that are Final Four-level good and have the huge victories this season to prove it.
Johni Broome drilled a game-tying 3-pointer with 15 seconds left in overtime — minutes after tying things up in the final minute of regulation with an inside finish — to give Auburn another chance to win.
But Alabama’s own superstar, Mark Sears, was able to take advantage of a defensive breakdown by Auburn on the other end of the floor and hit an off-balance floater with his favored left hand as time expired.
Final: Alabama 93, Auburn 91 — in overtime.
Broome’s triple gave him a career-high 34 points. Sears’ shot gave him a pedestrian nine. It’s a team game, though, and Sears’ side just had a little more in the end.
“We should've had a switch on that last possession,” Pearl said. “We did not execute it. And, as a result, he got downhill left, where he's gonna score. He hadn't gotten downhill left pretty much all game long.”
Instead of partying with fans and cutting down nets, Auburn circled up for the last postgame prayer in Neville Arena this season and walked back to the locker room.
After so many memorable home victories, Broome and several of his senior teammates left the court with a rare high-profile loss.
“It was a tough way to go out, especially the last game in Neville,” Broome said. “I would like for it to be different.”
Auburn’s first losing streak of the entire regular season is going to come at the very end of it. The Tigers’ opportunity to make even more history after what had already been a standout run to the outright championship in the toughest conference ever was dashed by a pair of losses to Texas A&M and Alabama.
The losing finish to the regular season doesn’t erase anything Auburn has done so far. As Pearl said afterwards, this championship can’t be taken away from his team. One tough week shouldn’t overshadow months of excellent winning basketball.
And there shouldn’t be any massive shame in losing on the road to a strong Texas A&M team and a last-second thriller to an elite Alabama team.
But Auburn can’t afford to let the issues that led to these back-to-back losses become habits. In order to win another championship this season, Auburn won’t have any more room for error on the scoreboard.
After the SEC Tournament next weekend in Nashville — where the Tigers won last season — it’s lose and it’s over. The next disappointment would be the final one.
“We still won the regular-season championship, but that's not good enough for us,” Broome said. “We let two games slip in a row, and that's not like us. Whether we like it or not, it's tournament time now. We've got the SEC Tournament to look forward to, and then March Madness.
“Now it's win or go home, basically. So we've got to lock in.”
Here are four Observations from Auburn’s overtime loss to Alabama, along with the Rotation Charts, Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Day.
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
Defense and rebounding — especially from the frontcourt — were big problems again
For the second time this season, Auburn’s defense greatly limited the scoring impact of Sears and former Tiger Aden Holloway. In the rematch, they combined for just 14 points on 5-14 shooting and a 2-7 mark from deep.
That performance was directly tied to the return of Denver Jones, who missed Auburn’s loss to Texas A&M earlier this week with an injury. He came back and played 38 out of 45 minutes “on a bad wheel,” as Pearl put it. On top of his defense, Jones had nine points — all after halftime — along with six assists and zero turnovers.
“Just huge,” Pearl said. “Denver played phenomenally, and at both ends of the floor.”
The problem was that, even without Sears and Holloway going off like usual, Alabama still scored 93 points. The Crimson Tide got to the rim too easily, particularly in a first half in which they scored 45. They didn’t even need their usual 3-pointers to succeed.