The Auburn Tigers travelled west on Tuesday to take on Chris Beard and the Ole Miss Rebels in Oxford, Miss. Despite starting SEC road play with two losses, Auburn overcame their road trip woes to secure a reassuring 78-66 win.
Both teams traded buckets and bricks in a streaky first half in terms of shooting efficiency. Auburn shot 33% from the field, but Ole Miss was even worse at 32%. The Tigers specifically struggled with the three ball, going a paltry 1/10 from beyond the arc to start the game.
Despite struggling to find some rhythm offensively, Auburn responded by crashing the boards and playing suffocating defense. Center and Mississippi State transfer Keyshawn Murphy cleaned the glass with nine first half rebounds. Murphy and sophomore guard/forward Elyjah Freeman contributed spark plug steals to jump start a 7-0 run over two minutes.
However, basketball is a game of runs, and Ole Miss had one of its own in a first half full of heat checks. The Rebels went on a 8-2 run thanks to threes from sophomore guard Travis Perry and senior guard Ilias Kamardine to finish the half. After the dust settled, Auburn found itself carrying a slim 28-27 lead into the locker room.
The second half started mostly the same, with both teams struggling to find any real consistency from the field. However, Auburn made up for some long range misses at the charity stripe, and Ole Miss began to heat up from three.
With 11:06 remaining, freshman forward Sebastian Williams-Adams drained a three to put Auburn up 11. Ole Miss again battled back thanks to a barrage of threes. The Tigers turned to sophomore guard Tahaad Pettiford to take over in the closing minutes, trusting one of the team's most clutch performers from last season. Pettiford drained a mid range shot, floated in a heavily contested and-one, and punctuated the flurry of scores with an acrobatic high flying dunk to keep Auburn's momentum rolling as the Tigers took a 71-64 with 1:35 remaining. It was all Auburn from then on, as the Tigers found their way to the free throw line to seal the game.
Auburn improves to .500 in conference play with the win on the road, climbing back to 3-3. However, next up for the Tigers is a date with the defending champion Florida Gators in Gainesville, a place Auburn hasn't won a game since 1996. The game is scheduled to tip at 3 p.m. CDT on Saturday.
