Auburn led by as many as 11 points in the first half and was tied at halftime, but Texas A&M dominated the second half on the way to an 81-63 victory to spoil Auburn’s Senior night.
Auburn (11-18) heads to Mississippi State on Saturday for their final game, while Texas A&M (23-7, 12-5) will host Vanderbilt with the ability to clinch the SEC title with a win.
Auburn got the good start that I said they would need. It was boosted by Texas A&M’s poor shooting in the first half, especially from deep. Texas A&M finished the first half shooting just 34 percent from the field and 0-10 from three-point range. However, the Aggies completely dominated the boards with a 32-12 advantage in the first half and 51-27 for the game. Physically, Texas A&M dominated Auburn, and on top of the big rebounding margin, the Aggies also outscored the Tigers in the paint 38-24.
I had a slight sliver of hope of being wrong when the Tigers were up in the first half and seemed to be playing well. Unfortunately, I ended up being right and Texas A&M was the far better team. It’s clear that Texas A&M is one of the best teams in the SEC and Auburn was in no spot to finish the upset. I was hoping for a happy ending for the seniors tonight, but it seems like they’ll have to win at Mississippi State on Saturday to go out on a high note.
While the size and physical play was a big part in Texas A&M’s victory, their excellence at the free throw line really seemed to seal the deal. Texas A&M only missed two free throws for the entire game and finished 24-26 from the line. There were a few points in the second half where the almost perfect free throw shooting seemed to be very demoralizing to Auburn as they kept trying to hang around. Auburn was much improved since their game at Alabama and shot 12-18 from the free throw line, but 67 percent just doesn’t compare to 92 percent in a game that was close up until the middle of the second half.
Tyler Harris was the one bright spot on the night for the Tigers with his 20 points, 8 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Harris kept fighting all night long and really wanted to leave it all on the court for his last game in Auburn Arena. Unfortunately, fellow seniors Cinmeon Bowers and Jordon Granger didn’t have their best game. Bowers finished with just 4 points and 5 rebounds in his last game in front of the home crowd. Granger finished with 8 points and 4 rebounds. Cinmeon Bowers needed to dominate the glass to give Auburn a chance of keeping up with the size of Texas A&M.
Auburn was able to build a lead and hold onto the tie at halftime because of their shooting in the first half. Texas A&M was cold and Auburn shot their best for the game. Bryce Brown had 6 points in the first half, but then went on to miss all three-point attempts in the second half and wasn’t able to put any more points in the stat book.
Auburn as a team shot 40 percent from three in the first half and just 8.3 percent in the second half after only making one of their 12 attempts. Once again, Auburn has to shoot well to get wins at this point in the season. They started off well tonight but just couldn’t get shots to fall in the second half and the final score showed that.
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The worst part about this game was the Auburn fans completely abandoning the seniors. The crowd was small, like the last few games have been, and that’s reasonable considering it was another 8 p.m., mid-week game. My problem was with the fans that came and barely made noise, even when Auburn was up 11 points on the best team in the SEC.
Not only was the crowd silent all night long, many started to head to the exits with more than 8 minutes left in the game. I get that people like to leave games early, and I will always disagree with those people; however, for this game, not many people expected Auburn to win, so I would assume several people came to support the seniors, as they should have. Instead of staying the entire time to continue supporting the three main seniors that have spent one, two, and four years playing for the Tigers, many just abandoned them. This certainly wasn’t the best way to go out, but I felt awful seeing so many people leave early. There were less than 1,500 people at the end of the game to give the seniors one final round of applause after Bruce Pearl finally pulled them from the game.
I expect better from the Auburn fans and wish basketball got the same support as football, or at least a tenth of it, which would easily sell out every basketball game. Oh well, maybe next year.
I’m sad that I never get to see Cinmeon Bowers play in Auburn Arena ever again. #CIMVP forever.
War Eagle, always.