NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Riding a two-game losing streak into the SEC Tournament, top-seeded Auburn snapped that skid with a 62-57 win over the eighth-seeded Ole Miss Rebels in Friday’s first quarterfinal game at Bridgestone Arena.
The win gives the Tigers their first win as a top seed under Bruce Pearl in the SEC Tournament and extends their winning streak over the Rebels to nine games, making it the longest in series history and the longest active winning streak against an SEC opponent
Here are the biggest takeaways from the game:
Defense carries the load early
Auburn’s offense attempted eight 3-pointers on its first nine attempts from the field and saw itself trailing the Rebels early on. The Tigers didn’t take their first lead until the 10-minute mark, until a Johni Broome dunk – that was the igniter for an overall 23-11 Tiger run the remainder of the first half. After the barrage of early 3-point attempts, in which the Tigers scored just six points in a seven minute span to start the game, Auburn attempted just three more triples and worked from inside-out, leading to 36% shooting from the field for the Tigers in the first 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, Auburn held the rebels to just 27% shooting in the first half and turned them over seven times while holding their top scorer in the half to just five points.
Second-half turnovers nearly cost Auburn
Both offenses settled in after the break, with Ole Miss shooting 48.1% from the field and Auburn shooting 56.5%. Just 51 points were scored in the first half combined, but both teams broke loose to score 68 points in the final 20 minutes, trading blows along the way.
But 18 of the Rebels’ 35 second half points came on Auburn turnovers. After committing just four turnovers in the first half, Auburn turned it over 11 times in the second half. The Tigers entered as the fourth-best in the nation at taking care of the ball with just 9.2 turnovers per game, but the Rebels entered with a 5.4 turnover margin – also fourth-best in the nation – and won in that facet of the game.
Auburn keeps Pedulla in check
Again, the Tigers’ defense was the driving force for Auburn on Friday.
Sean Pedulla – who recorded a season-high 29 points in the two team’s first meeting in Oxford and is coming off a display of late-game heroics with a triple at the buzzer to takedown Arkansas on Thursday and vault the Rebels to the quarterfinal game – was held in check by the Tigers’ defense and recorded just 12 points on the day and just two in the first half.
Double-double machine continues to make history
Continuing to make headlines in the National Player of the Year discussion, Broome notched himself in the Auburn history books - once again - on Friday.
With his 23-point, 15-rebound performance, Broome tied himself as the single-season double-double record holder with 18 this season. He led all scorers and was 7-of-10 from the free throw line. He led a 26 point paint performance for the Tigers after getting dominated by the likes of Texas A&M and Alabama down low in their last two outings.
Auburn will play the winner of No. 13 seed Texas and No. 4 seed Tennessee on Saturday at noon in the first semifinal game.
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