Observations: Auburn 86, South Carolina 55

So much for the rematch not looking like the first one. The Tigers dominated on both ends of the floor, again, for a critical tourney win.

C Johni Broome (Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Basketball is a game of matchups.

And, after 80 minutes of basketball between Auburn and South Carolina this season, it’s clear: The Tigers are a nightmare matchup for the Gamecocks.

“'m not going to tell you why it's a good matchup for us and a bad one for them,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said Friday. “It just is. There's things about the way we play and they play that sort of works out for us.”

Contrary to popular belief, it didn’t matter that Auburn was inside Bridgestone Arena instead of Neville Arena on Friday. After beating South Carolina by 40 in the regular season, Auburn beat South Carolina by 31 in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament.

“One of (South Carolina’s) players in their postgame interviews said we basically won because it was in The Jungle,” All-American center Johni Broome said. “South Carolina is a very good team, but we had a little extra motivation coming in.”

Auburn took a lead just 4:10 into the game and never gave it back. The Tigers went on a 13-0 run — a Kill Shot — to go up by 14 with more than eight minutes left in the first half. It went on an 11-0 run — another Kill Shot — to close the half with a 20-point lead.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” SEC All-Freshman point guard Aden Holloway said. “They’re going to get on a run. And we just got to stay true to us, stay true to our principles, stay true to what we do, and we’re going to be good.”

According to college basketball analytics guru Evan Miyakawa, a team with at least one Kill Shot wins 71% of the time. A team with two Kill Shots wins 88% of the time.

Auburn got that before halftime Friday. The second half was purely academic. It didn’t even matter that the Tigers took more than four minutes to finally score in the second half, because they were still able to stretch their lead to 30-plus.

“We know we’re the better team,” All-SEC forward Jaylin Williams said. “But we have to go into the game and respect our opponents and not just hope to win the game. Going into it, playing these guys, we know they’re very talented. They’ve beaten some really good opponents at their home court, so going into it we knew we had to lock in.”

For the 25th time this season, Auburn won a basketball game. And, for the 25th time this season, Auburn won a game by double-digits.

There isn’t another college basketball team quite like these Tigers this season. That’s true in more ways than one — and the Gamecocks felt the totality of it, again, in what is traditionally the most even matchup of the SEC Tournament’s first three days.

Here are four Observations from Auburn’s 86-55 win over South Carolina in the SEC Tournament, along with the Rotation Charts, Nerd Stats and the Quote of the Day.

The defense was downright dominant

In the first meeting, Auburn held South Carolina to 40.5% from 2-point range and 20% from 3-point range. The Gamecocks had an effective field goal percentage of 37.5%, which was their second-lowest of the entire regular season.

In the rematch, Auburn held South Carolina to 28.9% from 2-point range and 25% from 3-point range. The Gamecocks had an effective field goal percentage of 30.7%, which was by far their lowest in this campaign.

What’s even more impressive was that South Carolina hit five of its last seven shots from the field, when the game was in total blowout territory. Before that, the Gamecocks were 11-50 (22%) from the field.

Auburn straight-up took South Carolina out of its element on offense. On Thursday afternoon, South Carolina had more than 50 points in the paint against Arkansas. A day later, Auburn held it to just 22 points in the paint.

“We knew we couldn’t win like that,” Broome said. “Our front line takes pride in our defense. As you can see, on the defensive side, we held our own and stood our ground.”

According to the official stats, the Gamecocks went 10-30 (33.3%) on shots at the rim. South Carolina tried to take it right into the teeth of the nation’s best 2-point defense, and Auburn prevailed over and over again.