No. 11 Auburn snapped Ole Miss’ unbeaten conference streak at home on Tuesday night by a score of 79-70.
Ole Miss (11-11, 4-5 SEC) fell behind early in the game as Auburn was able to find the range from behind the arc and drained six 3-pointers. The Rebels were able to climb back into the game even though seven players got into trouble with two fouls each before halftime.
“They just looked faster than us all night,” Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy said. “I thought we were scrappy enough to hang around in the first half because we didn’t give them a lot of second shots.”
The Rebels were led in scoring by senior Deandre Burnett with 16 points. His teammates, Terrence Davis, Markell Crawford and Devontae Shuler, each added 11 of their own.
Auburn took a 38-36 advantage into the dressing rooms.
After halftime, Auburn continued its dominance on the court behind the play of Bryce Brown with 19 of his 23 points in the game. The Rebels did cut the deficit down to 59-55 with eight minutes remaining before the Tigers went on a 13-2 run to secure the victory.
“When the game was still in play, despite our inability offensively to make plays at the basket, I think we were 4 for 12 in the second half,” Kennedy said. “We just weren’t making plays and [were] making poor decisions that related to penetrate-and-pitch and stepped out-of-bounds a couple times, which obviously you can’t do to beat the No. 11 team in the country.”
The Tigers forced the Rebels to turn the ball over 17 times. Ole Miss outshot Auburn 41 to 38 percent from the field in the game. Auburn held Ole Miss to shoot 23.8 percent from downtown.
Ole Miss returns to action Saturday as they go to Tennessee.
Adam Brown is the sports editor of HottyToddy.com. He can be reached at adam.brown@hottytoddy.com.
