Observations: Ole Miss 85, Auburn 79

The Tigers ended a meltdown month of February with by far their worst loss. Now they're on the outside, with only themselves to blame.

(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

AUBURN — A few hours after the clock hit all zeroes in Auburn’s 85-79 loss to Ole Miss on Saturday night, the calendar flipped from February to March.

For the better part of the last decade, March has meant excitement on the Plains. The Tigers ended a long NCAA Tournament drought with an out-of-nowhere SEC title campaign eight years ago. They did the previously unthinkable and went to the Final Four a year later. A pandemic kept Auburn from a third straight trip to the Dance.

After a COVID-impacted follow-up season of struggle, Auburn reset and won the SEC again four years ago with what might have been the top team in program history. A hard-earned trip back to the tournament three years ago was followed up by an SEC Tournament title one March later. Then it was a third SEC championship and a second Final Four run with what was clearly the best squad Auburn had ever seen.

Steven Pearl was on the bench for all of those seasons. When his father Bruce Pearl made the ultimate decision to step down right before the season and hand the reins to him, it was always going to be a real fight to keep that NCAA Tournament streak going. This was a first-time head coach with a team that only returned its sixth man.

When February began, the younger Pearl and his Auburn team were in prime position to go dancing. It had shaken off some lopsided losses to a few of the nation’s best teams in non-conference play and picked up some truly impressive victories in the process. A 7 seed was the most common projection, but a 6 or even a 5 was possible.

Now the Tigers have entered March in what truly would have been an unforeseen position just four weeks earlier. Auburn went 1-7 in February, with the lone win coming on a last-second heist at home. Three of those losses were to teams that won’t come close to making the NCAA Tournament, barring a miracle over the next two weeks.

The same might be said of Auburn now, too.

“It probably puts us out,” Pearl said afterwards. “It’s our first bad loss of the year, and it’s not because they’re a bad team — it’s just their numbers and their ratings. That probably puts us on the outside looking in.”

A month-long meltdown reached its bitter end Saturday night, as Auburn lost by six at home to an Ole Miss team that had dropped 10 straight games and had little to play for other than pride. The Tigers, meanwhile, had their NCAA Tournament lives at stake.

But Ole Miss was the one that looked different Saturday night — not Auburn.

Ole Miss finished with its most points scored in regulation in a month and a half and its fewest points allowed in February. It was the best performance in weeks, on both ends of the floor, from a team that looked done.

Auburn put out more of the same: A free-falling defense that gives up season-highs regularly and an inconsistent-at-best offense that has now become much easier to turn over and slow down.

There was even a throwback to another frustrating trend from earlier in the season: Leaving a regular starter on the bench to open the game.

These have been constant refrains this season with these Tigers. They had their chances to win. They didn’t do enough to close the deal.

Auburn blew a 7-point lead in the final 2:23 of the first half and an 8-point lead in 3:30 early in the second half. Instead of killing off some visitors who were running low on hope, the Tigers kept them in the game and let them take it back twice.

“We had an opportunity to step on their throats and extend the lead,” Pearl said. “Both times, we had empty possessions offensively, and we can’t do that.”

Then, after cutting a 12-point Ole Miss lead all the way down to 2 with 3:20 left, Auburn got outscored 9-3 over the next two minutes and change.

Ole Miss celebrated a rare win. Auburn walked off with yet another inexcusable loss.

“I want to apologize to our fans, who have been so phenomenal all year,” Pearl said. “They deserve better from us, and we've got to do better.”

Doing better with whatever’s left of the season likely won’t be enough, unless it results in an upset over a red-hot rival Alabama on the road next Saturday. Before that, Auburn has to beat an LSU team that beat Ole Miss on the road earlier this week.

Throughout this nightmare February for Auburn, there has been a lot of talk about what has to be better — before games, between games, during games, after games.

There has been little-to-no action, and that’s resulted in a fall onto and off the NCAA Tournament bubble with two weeks until Selection Sunday. For the first time since that pandemic tourney in 2021, Auburn is not widely expected to hear its name called.

Yes, Auburn still has games left to play this season. However, as the tourney odds plummet, so do the chances of getting out of this potentially campaign-killing slide. A mostly new and mostly young team hasn’t gotten better as the season has gone on. Instead, it’s done the opposite, and that’s a brutal look for Pearl and his staff.

Saturday night featured the type of damaging loss — the first Quad 3 one for Auburn in 37 months — that will already have fans looking ahead to an increasingly critical first offseason under the younger Pearl.

The majority of Auburn’s current staff helped build this program from a perennial doormat into one in which making the NCAA Tournament is the standard. Falling short of that standard, no matter the circumstances, will invite more pressure on them.

March on the Plains isn’t supposed to start this way. Not anymore. But it has.

Here are three big Observations from Auburn’s 6-point home loss to Ole Miss, along with the Rotation Charts and the Quote of the Night.

(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

Auburn’s defense made Ole Miss look like Michigan (really)

Remember the Michigan loss in Las Vegas? It’s understandable if you wanted to wipe all of that from your brain, as Auburn got blown out for the first time in a long time.

In that game, Michigan shot a dominant 21-33 (63.6%) on 2-pointers. Michigan also went 40% from 3-point range. Of course, Michigan turned out to be the outright Big Ten champion, sitting at 27-2 and cruising to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

On Saturday night, at home, with Auburn’s tourney lives on the line… Ole Miss shot exactly 21-33 on 2-pointers. Ole Miss also went 40% from 3-point range. Of course, Ole Miss had lost 10 straight games and is still five games below .500 after this win.