Poor Free Throw Shooting and Bad Calls A Plenty Prevent Auburn from Sweeping Alabama

After a game in which no one really won, Auburn has to take the loss officially and avoids the season sweep of Alabama. Auburn (11-17, 5-11) fell to Alabama (17-11, 8-8) at the hands of poor free throw shooting and missed calls all around.

This game was really, really hard to watch despite how well most of the players were playing while they weren’t on the free throw line. Auburn started missing free throws early on, and I said that it would probably be the difference. Even at that point, I had no clue how bad the Tigers would continue to shoot the rest of the way. Auburn finished just 12-of-27 at the free throw line.

Alabama wasn’t much better with just 17-of-29 shooting from the line themselves. The cause for the 58 combined foul shouts between the two teams? Forty-seven total fouls. Auburn had 24 fouls called against them, while Alabama had 23. While the numbers are almost even, each team was on the losing end of several bad calls.

Coleman Coliseum erupted in “boos” after the officials missed a clear charge call on Retin Obasohan. While that might have been the worst call of the game in Auburn’s favor, there were two missed goaltending calls, several push-offs both ways, and contact under the basket that would have even been called on the streets.

This game was physical and high energy just like a rivalry game should be. The only problem was the poor officiating going along with it. This game was built up to be something really exciting and special with a good bit on the line for both teams. Instead, it just felt dirty either way. No one wins after that game, and both sets of fans seem to agree.

Other than missing more than 50 percent of their free throws, Auburn also went back to their large droughts at multiple points in the game. Auburn started with very little offense and just couldn’t make a basket. Alabama got out to a 10 point lead in the first half before Auburn finally started to get things going. Auburn played well down the stretch at the end of the first half to pull within two points at halftime.

The Tigers then exploded out of the gates in the second half and made their first eight shots to open up a 10 point lead of their own. At that point I really thought Auburn would be able to pull away and get out of Coleman with a big upset win and a season sweep of the series with Alabama. Instead, the game just got uglier.

This was at the point when most of the questionable whistles were blown and Auburn went on another really cold streak. With all of the foul calls both ways, good and bad, both teams had a huge opportunity to pull away with just decent performance at the free throw line. Instead neither team seemed to want it. It wasn’t until very late in the game that Alabama finally made both free throws at the line and seemingly put the game out of reach. After a slow start, Retin Obasohan also had a few key shots, including his only three of the game to put this one out of reasonable reach for Auburn.

Regardless of trailing by 6 to 7 points with under a minute to go, Auburn kept fighting. Cinmeon Bowers had a few good runs at the basket and cut it to four points with under 40 seconds to play. Auburn also had two great opportunities to cut it to two points with an almost steal on an inbounds and a great pass down low to Bowers. Auburn failed to capitalize on either play and just couldn’t put themselves in a position to get the win.

Even if Bowers was fouled and the officials got the call right, it’s very optimistic to think he would have made even one of the free throws. Every aspect of this game almost always comes back to the poor free throw shooting.

Bruce Pearl coached a good game and so did Avery Johnson. Neither coach will be able to say a lot of bad things about their game plan or their players. If we take the awful officials out of this game, I really hope games start to look like this on the regular. The game was physical, but clean. Both teams had stretches of good offense and good defense, while both teams also had their lapses on both ends.

Auburn got big games from both of their freshman to provide a great look at what’s ahead. Bryce Brown led Auburn with 14 points on 4-of-6 shooting from three, while Horace Spencer had a career-high 10 points with just three rebounds and one block. Spencer was the driving force behind the resurgence in the first half after getting “blocked” by Donte Hall. Unfortunately, Spencer picked up his fourth foul early and then once again had to sit most of the second half where he wasn’t able to continue affecting the game on the defensive end. While Brown was able to knock down four threes on the night, Auburn could have definitely used a few more from the young sharpshooter.

With just seven players seeing the floor for Auburn, all of them had to play well. Unfortunately, Jordon Granger and TJ Lang didn’t quite do that. After having a huge game against Georgia, Granger finished with just three points and one rebound with four fouls. Lang only had two points and turned the ball over three times, including the potential steal in the final seconds.

T.J. Dunans continued to show improvement and attacked the basket well for the Tigers. Dunans finished with 9 points and 5 assists but also managed to turn the ball over six times. Bowers also had a really good game, but his free throw shooting was abysmal and he had to play even better to get the win on the road. He did manage to tally another double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds but shot 5-of-15 from the field and 1-of-6 from the free throw line. The good game from Bowers is just overshadowed by what it could have been, and the win that was very much in reach.

Auburn has a roster that could easily get run out of the gym in its current state. Instead of rolling over and succeeding the game to Alabama they still showed a lot of fight, especially on the road. Unfortunately, Auburn couldn’t get it done.

Sweeping Alabama would have been great, but a loss tonight doesn’t erase the other win we had over them, as well as the wins over Kentucky and UAB. This Tigers squad is starting to play well at the right time and could pose a decent threat in the SEC Tournament.

Before that, this team has one more home game on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Central as Cinmeon Bowers, Jordon Granger, and Tyler Harris play their last game in Auburn Arena. Texas A&M will be a tough opponent no doubt, but these three guys deserve an awesome send off.

Two-and-one against in-state rivals ain’t bad.

War Eagle, always.