Observations: Auburn 88, Texas 82

How do you overcome being down by 14 to an outlier 3-point performance? Just play a virtually perfect second half on offense. Easy!

AUBURN, Ala. — Kevin Overton was frustrated. Who wouldn’t have been, though?

Overton had just watched Texas build a 14-point lead on Auburn — inside Neville Arena — in just 11 minutes. The Longhorns, who averaged seven made triples per game and shot around 32% on 3s this season, hit that number on their first 10 tries.

And, once Texas finally started missing shots, the whistles started going. Auburn got called for three defensive fouls in 55 seconds, helping Texas stretch its lead again.

The third foul was on Overton, a late call after what appeared to be an Auburn stop. Overton yelled at the official. That was met with another whistle: A technical foul.

Texas hit both free throws, going up by 13 with 5:13 left in the first half. Auburn was at a crossroads. Fight through the adversity, or pack it in and take a rough home loss.

Steven Pearl looked right at Overton, wanting to see his individual reaction — and how it might affect his entire team.

“KO, in the past, would have had a hard time responding after that,” Pearl said. “I said, ‘KO, we don't do that.’ He looked at me, and he said, ‘You're right.’”

Pearl then told his guard to go apologize to the referee for his outburst. It worked.

“They responded really well to it,” Pearl said. “And that's not always the case with officials. Like, sometimes, when you ‘MF’ them like that, you're done. But I thought that the crew did a great job of moving on to the next play and not letting it impact their whistle as the game went on.”

Before the technical, Overton was 1-3 from the field for five points. Shortly after it, he hit a 3-pointer to put Auburn back down by 10. He would later get an assist to cut it to eight, followed by a layup to cut it to five.

When Overton subbed out 56 seconds into the second half on a quick foul, Auburn soon found itself back down by double-digits. But the Tigers were undeterred.

Overton came back a few minutes later to play a virtually perfect second half of basketball: 17 points on 3-3 from 3-point range and 8-8 from the free-throw line. He had no more fouls and no more turnovers in 16 minutes.

And Auburn, as a team, played a virtually perfect second half of basketball as well.

The Tigers shot 13-19 (68.4%) from the field, 6-9 (66.7%) from 3-point range and 22-28 (77.6%) from the free-throw line after halftime. They averaged an unbelievable 1.929 points per possession. (For a stretch, Auburn was actually at 2 PPP or better.) They scored on 24 of their 28 trips down the floor and turned it over just once.

“Playing in the flow,” Overton said. “Shots falling.”

That’s how Auburn went from down 14 in the first half to winning by six on Wednesday over a Texas team that Pearl said was the “most dangerous” in the SEC. The win marked the fourth straight victory for the Tigers, who can officially call themselves the “hottest” in the SEC.

“We're streaking right now,” said Keyshawn Hall, who had 25 of his game-best 31 points in the second half. “But, like I told you guys at the beginning of the year, when we were taking some Ls — once we get hot, it's gonna get rolling.”