After an uninspiring first half, No. 1 overall seed Auburn found its groove in the second stanza, romping its way to a 78-67 win over South Alabama in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament on Tuesday night at Neville Arena.
With the win, Auburn has extended its winning streak over the Jags to five and stretched its streak of non-conference wins on its home floor to 64.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the game:
Lackadaisical start leads to lousy first half
Much of the woes from the regular season carried into Auburn’s first postseason game, as the Tigers displayed a lousy start once again.
South Alabama jumped out to an early 10-3 lead, but Auburn pushed back with an 8-0 run to take a one-point lead before the Jags and Chaze Harris stifled Auburn en route to a double-digit lead nearing the break.
South Alabama used a 15-6 run, with Harris scoring eight of the 15, to take an 11-point lead at the 2:36 mark. Meanwhile, Auburn’s only offense was coming from Keyshawn Hall, who scored over half of the Tigers’ first-half points with 16.
With South Alabama throwing zone defensive looks on nearly every possession, Auburn attempted a whopping 26 3-pointers. Per the ESPN broadcast, it marked Auburn's most 3-point attempts in a half in the last eight years.
Of the 26 attempts, Auburn netted just five, with Hall connecting on three.
Auburn ended the half with a dismal 25% clip from the field, connecting on just one of its last nine shots from the field heading into the break. South Alabama shot 50% from the floor, while Auburn connected on just four shots from inside the arc.
Tale of two halves
After the putrid first-half showing, Auburn found an answer to swiftly turn things around.
The Tigers began the half with an 8-2 burst and used some feisty defense to hold the Jags to a 0-for-4 mark to start things off.
With Kaden Madgwood (more on him later) leading the second-half surge, Auburn used another 10-3 run to take a six-point lead at the under-12 timeout while holding South Alabama to just five field goals.
Auburn used runs of 9-0 and 8-0 With under 10 minutes to play, it held onto a double-digit lead it eventually took for the remainder of the night.
The Tigers – known for their second-half offensive outbursts – shot a sizzling 60% from the field with 11 triples, outrebounded the Jags 20-13 and dished out 10 assists.
Kevin Overton highlights the outburst
After a scoreless first-half showing with a 0-for-5 mark from the field, Overton broke out for 21 points in the second stanza.
He has scored 20-plus points in four of the Tigers’ last five games.
With Auburn struggling mightily from deep in the first half, Overton connected on a whopping seven triples on 13 attempts – all of his buckets came from deep.
It was by design, considering South Alabama runs a zone defense most of the time, but it had no answer once Overton found the hot hand, capping off the Tigers’ scoring efforts with a pair of deep threes.
Magwood breaks out in March
Auburn fans are not so familiar with Kaden Magwood’s name sitting atop the leaderboard, but on Tuesday night, it was.
Magwood has not appeared in the Tigers’ last 15 games – his last appearance was on January 6 against Texas A&M – but received an early nod off the bench against the Jags and made the most of his opportunity.
The 6-foot-2 freshman guard scored all of his 14 points in the second stanza, connecting on three triples to lead the Tigers’ surge from beyond the arc in the half.
With Auburn trailing by three with 15:54 left to play, Magwood tallied 11 straight as starting point guard Tahaad Pettiford went to the bench with three fouls.
Auburn will host Seattle in the second round of the tournament, with a day and time TBA.
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