Observations: Auburn 95, Arkansas 73

Desperate times, desperate measures. Behind elite offense and improved defense, the Tigers finally got the big win they needed.

(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

AUBURN — During a team dinner Friday night — which was at Hamilton’s at Magnolia, for those who might be curious — Keyshawn Hall and a couple more of Auburn basketball’s leaders got together and delivered a message to everyone.

“We’re going to play for the fans this game,” Hall said. “They deserve it. They’ve been at the games, selling all the games out.”

That message rattled in the Tigers’ heads for the rest of the night and into Saturday. When head coach Steven Pearl stepped back and asked his players to speak — “they hear me talk enough,” he said — Hall and Kevin Overton repeated it.

“‘We've got to do this for our fans,’ because they continue to show up, even though we've had a couple tough results,” Pearl recalled. “On the road, they just continue to support our team.”

For many of those Auburn fans, after the initial outrage over a reversed call on what would have been a game-winning buzzer-beater against Texas A&M subsided, the next few days were spent voicing their frustrations both online and offline.

Their reactions to a rare 0-2 start in SEC play for these Tigers ranged from disappointment and recalibrated expectations to concern or flat-out panic.

But they still showed up in sellout numbers at Neville Arena on Saturday, just like they had done for the last 77 home games there. Even though a game against John Calipari and a top-15 Arkansas team loaded with future NBA talent was not the ideal matchup for a rebound, they got in their seats and got loud from the opening tip.

And they were rewarded with Auburn’s best game of men’s basketball since it clinched a spot in the Final Four 10 months ago: A 95-73 thumping of what is perhaps the best roster in the SEC, led by the most successful coach in the SEC.

“They took it to us in every way,” Calipari said.

Calipari called Auburn a “desperate” team that played like one. Some might have taken that as an insult, a deflection or a backhanded compliment.

The reality was that Auburn was a desperate team Saturday. Hall even said so afterwards. The Tigers played for 40 minutes like their backs were against the wall.

“I mean, we had to get that win,” Pearl said. “It didn't matter who it was against. We had to win that one, because you can't dig yourself into a 0-3 hole in this conference and expect to have any real success.”

The Tigers didn’t just beat the Razorbacks. They “spanked” them. (Calipari’s words.)

Arkansas only led for 1:52. Auburn led by double-digits for almost 30 entire minutes, and Arkansas only got within 20 points for 45 seconds of the final 16 minutes.

Michigan State, Duke and Houston had beaten Arkansas by a combined 21 points earlier this season. Auburn beat Arkansas by 22, and that was with the Razorbacks scoring nine of the final 11 points of the game — when the Tigers had walk-ons in.

“We’ve lost to three top-10 teams, and we had a chance to beat all three,” Calipari said afterwards. “That’s who we’ve lost to, top-10 teams. We had no chance today.”

Everywhere you look on the box score, you can see signs of Auburn’s dominance.

Arkansas had 11 turnovers and only nine assists. Auburn had a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio as a team, assisting on 20 of its 34 made baskets.

Auburn out-rebounded a bigger Arkansas team by nine. It spent most of the game having a double-digit advantage on the boards.

An elite Arkansas offense that thrives on getting into the lane had 28 points down there. Auburn had 48 points in the paint.

Auburn had runs of 8-0, 11-0 and 9-0 in the first half. Arkansas never had a run larger than 5-0 all game.

Neither of Arkansas’ coveted 5-star true freshman guards broke 20 points Saturday. Auburn’s leading scorer — the journeyman Hall — scored 32, becoming the first Tiger to have back-to-back 30-point games since Wesley Person in 1994.

The Tigers refused to lay on the mat after their latest punch to the gut. They got back to their feet and proved that they’re still capable of throwing knockout punches against some of the best competition they’ll face in this conference.

“They’ve got a couple guys that are going to get their name called in June in the NBA draft, and our guys got up for that,” Pearl said. “The challenge now is we’ve got to do that every night. Because you’ve seen what it looks like when you don’t do it — you lose to Georgia in overtime, and you lose to A&M at home. So, we’ve just got to continue to build off of that.

“But I thought after Tuesday night, lesser teams would have continued to harp on that and let that affect their performance and get too low. Well, we’ve got to do the same thing after tonight. We beat a top-15 team. We can’t let that get us too high now. … We can’t let that one result make us feel like we’ve done something, because we’re still 1-2 in conference, and we’ve still got some ground we’ve got to make up.”

Here are three big Observations from Auburn’s 22-point win over Arkansas, along with the Rotation Charts, Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Night.