Observations: Auburn 69, Mississippi State 63
Observations: Auburn 69, Mississippi State 63
The Tigers brought 3-point daggers to their rock fight with the Bulldogs, and they came out with a nice grind-it-out win in SEC play.
PG Wendell Green Jr. (Zach Bland/Auburn Athletics)
Tension was in the air at Neville Arena, and everybody could feel it.
Even though Auburn had won its last 27 home games — good enough for the second-longest streak in Division I basketball and the longest among the major-conference teams — and hadn’t trailed since the 16-minute mark in the first half, a lot of people in orange and blue were on edge with 2:34 to play Saturday night.
Mississippi State had once trailed by 13 in the second half, but it had gone on a 6-0 run to cut it to a 4-point game. Auburn hadn’t scored in more than four minutes of game time. Jaylin Williams, who was having one of the best games of his career, had just fouled out. Mississippi State had a real shot at snapping the streak.
Then Bruce Pearl called a play to get Wendell Green Jr. and Allen Flanigan both at the top of the offense. That carried some risk. To that point in the game, Green had hit just two of nine shots, and Flanigan had been turning the ball over frequently.
But the move worked, as Flanigan drove into the gap of Mississippi State’s defense before circling back and getting Green the ball in space. He drilled the deep 3-pointer. Auburn now led by seven.
Then Green came up with a steal at the top of the key. He raced down the floor and hit a finger roll — but the sub-6-foot point guard jumped so high that Williams thought he was about to dunk it. (“We hard a hard lift this week, so he ain't have no legs.”)
“It was a big shot,” Pearl said. “It was what we wanted. And then, come down to the other end, and Wendell makes a great defensive play and all of a sudden — now the game is ours. Making plays on both ends of the floor is what you’ve got to do to win.”
Auburn led by nine. Green still wasn’t done. He would go a perfect 6-for-6 from the line in the closing seconds to help put away Mississippi State and help the Tigers notch their fourth SEC win in five tries.
“Let's just find a way to win the game,” Green recalled saying. “Do whatever.”
Whatever it takes to get the win, right? This is the gauntlet of SEC basketball, where ultra-athletic teams are putting each other through meat grinders pretty much every night.
On Saturday, Kentucky rebounded from a dreadful performance against South Carolina and handed a top-five Tennessee team its first league loss. Vanderbilt scored 63 second-half points to send Arkansas to a 1-4 mark in conference play. Florida handed what was once a red-hot, top-20 Missouri team its second loss of the week.
As the dust settles from the weekend, Auburn now sits tied for third in the SEC with Tennessee. Only Alabama and Texas A&M, which pulled off massive blowouts Saturday, are undefeated in conference play.
Auburn’s 69-63 win over Mississippi State won’t impress the critics or the advanced metrics. The Tigers turned the ball over 20 times, lost decisively in the paint and got a lot of help from the Bulldogs going a brutal 0-18 from deep to grab the win.
But a win’s a win, and there are still a lot of positives to take away from a win over one of the nation’s toughest defensive teams.
“Sixty-nine points doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a lot against Mississippi State,” Green said. (He’s right: MSU allows just 57 per game.) “So we feel confident with our offense. … We just feel good. We getting in that groove, and we just want to keep trying to find a way to win, no matter what.”
Here are four Observations from Auburn’s 69-63 win over Mississippi State, along with the Rotation Charts, Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Night.
SF Allen Flanigan (Zach Bland/Auburn Athletics)
Auburn found yet another new way to win a game
Pearl probably said it best when he sad absolutely nothing at all in his opening statement Saturday night.
“I think I’m just going to take questions, because I don’t think I can even begin to explain that,” Pearl said.
Auburn turned the ball over 20 times and had a turnover rate of 28.3%, which was second only to the frustrating loss at USC in terms of a season high. The Tigers were called for 22 fouls, with 17 of them coming in the second half, which led to Mississippi State shooting 28 free throws after halftime.
(In one of the most bizarre box scores and uneven officiating performances you’ll ever see, nobody shot a single free throw in the first half. There were 41 in the second half.)
Auburn also lost the rebounding battle by six, and all but two of the Bulldogs’ points either came inside the paint or at the free-throw line.
Johni Broome saw his double-double streak come to an end with just six points and four rebounds against Tolu Smith and the Mississippi State frontcourt. (Smith had a dominant 20-and-10 night.) Broome didn’t have a great night on defense, either, finishing with zero blocks and four fouls.
Mississippi State went right at him, and it was a smart strategy. The Bulldogs were a dominant 19-26 on layups and dunks combined.
And yet… Auburn improved to 4-1 in league play.
“Johni Broome has been our most consistent player,” Pearl said. “He’s been unbelievably consistent. Tonight, just didn’t have a big night, and yet we’re still able to win. This team should feel really good about that.”
It’s rare to lose as much as Auburn did around the rim against an inside-focused team like Mississippi State and still come out with the win. But that’s because the Tigers hit a season-high 11 3-pointers, finishing with a percentage above 33.3% for the first time since the win over Washington on Dec. 21.
“Mississippi State is so big, so long, so athletic,” Pearl said. “The closer you get to the basket against them, the better you don’t look. So, we had talked a lot about just getting some open shots and taking those open shots. That was it. I thought it was really good.”
Auburn was +33 in scoring on 3-pointers Saturday night, and it hadn’t won that battle by more than 18 in a single game this season. Five different players hit triples, with the big three of Williams, Green and Flanigan cashing in multiple times.
The Tigers beat Ole Miss earlier this week with their offense. The defense did its fair share of work in order to beat Mississippi State, but the outside shooting was the massive difference-maker Saturday night. It was how Auburn was able to overcome an uncharacteristic bad night in the paint and on the glass
PF Jaylin Williams (Zach Bland/Auburn Athletics)