What will Auburn do with its shot at some redemption in Nashville?

Mississippi State embarrassed Auburn last month. Now the Tigers have to avenge that loss at the SEC Tournament just to stay alive.

(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In more ways than one, KeShawn Murphy probably didn’t think he would be where he was Tuesday afternoon in Nashville.

The Auburn center was walking down the hallway outside of Auburn’s locker room at Bridgestone Arena, heading toward the bus. The Tigers had a mandated 45-minute open practice a day before the first round of the SEC Tournament, and they were going over to nearby Vanderbilt to finish out their on-court prep behind closed doors.

Murphy looked down and saw a few reporters who were at the end of the hallway. Auburn basketball’s media relations director asked the big man if he would be willing to answer some quick questions first. Murphy, ever the gracious veteran, agreed.

It didn’t take long for Murphy to get the question: What was it like getting a second chance to beat your old team, Mississippi State, after losing there a month earlier?

“I'm grateful for the opportunity, because I thought I was going to lose and head out with that,” Murphy said. “I'm blessed with another opportunity to be able to come out and get another chance at it.”

In a way, that’s the mindset that everybody involved with Auburn basketball is going to have to have Wednesday afternoon at the SEC Tournament.

There’s no way around it: Auburn got embarrassed almost a month ago when it played Mississippi State. Head coach Steven Pearl called it the “worst loss” he had ever been a part of at Auburn, although there would be a couple more contenders later.

Mississippi State star Josh Hubbard had a career shooting performance in the first half, going 9-12 from 3-point range and scoring 35 points. It marked the most points scored by a Division I men’s basketball player before halftime since Iowa’s Luka Garza put up 36 against small-school Southern back in 2020.

Auburn managed to survive that onslaught and go from being down by 18 early in the second half to up by seven with 3:56 to play. The Tigers blew that lead and then some, getting outscored 18-5 down the stretch to lose by six to a team that entered the game under .500 both overall and in SEC play.

And, to rub some more salt in the wound, Mississippi State has not won a game since. After beating the Tigers, the Bulldogs have lost five straight by a combined 97 points.

Auburn, at the very least, has won two games since then — home victories over Kentucky and LSU. The three losses, though, have been brutal in their own way: A nearly wire-to-wire defeat at previously struggling Oklahoma, an inexcusable home result against an Ole Miss team that had lost 10 straight and a road rivalry showing at Alabama last Saturday that never felt nearly as close as the final margin of 12.

Yet, somehow, there’s still belief among some NCAA Tournament bracket experts — not close to a majority, per the Matrix — that Auburn could still play its way into the field. The bubble is historically so weak there might be some massive amounts of forgiveness from the committee for a team that has already lost 15 times.

But any scenario that ends with Auburn getting its name called on Sunday, at the absolute bare minimum, includes a win over Mississippi State on Wednesday.

“We’re still in position,” Pearl said Tuesday, between practice sessions. “We’ve just got to come out here and win a couple of games. There are gonna be bid stealers. We’ve just got to control what we can control. We’ve gotta win. We’ve gotta win some games. Our mindset is to come out here and try to win five games.

“But, obviously, you've got to get the first one in order to do that. … Our guys understand that they have a tremendous opportunity and a tremendous responsibility. We've got to try and finish the job.”

And what would it take for Auburn to do that? Honestly, all you need to do is look to what went wrong in that loss in Starkville.