With roughly seven minutes left in the first half, Auburn led Mississippi State 21-19.
The Tigers wouldn't see the lead again.
To close out the half, Auburn would score only one more point, a KT Harrell free throw. At half, the Bulldogs led 31-22.
A furious comeback saw the Tigers cut MSU's lead to 67-65 with 2:03 to go, but Bulldog guard IJ Ready answered right back with a three, and the comeback attempt was foiled.
"They made it really difficult for us to score in the first half," head coach Bruce Pearl said. "We didn't value the ball, we didn't value possessions. Points off turnovers and second chance points were the difference in the game. "
All told, the Bulldogs had 20 second chance points and 21 points off 12 Auburn turnovers.
Another large contribution to the Tigers loss was lack of rebounding.
On the night, MSU outrebounded Auburn 44-33, with 17 of those 33 coming from forward Cinemon Bowers. Bowers also had 16 points, giving him his 12th double-double on the year.
"Defense and rebounding are things that we can control, Pearl said. "When we defend and rebound, we can beat just about anybody in this league. When we don't defend and rebound, we can't beat anybody in this league. There's not enough talent in there to beat anybody in this league if we don't defend and rebound and play with our identity. We can't beat anybody if we play like that."
Despite Bowers' big night and KT Harrell's 22 points, Pearl said that in order for Auburn to win games, it has to be a team effort, rather than a few standout individual performances.
"We play best when everybody contributes, and I only had two or three guys that really played well tonight," Pearl said. "It's hard to win when you only have two or three guys that played."
Next up for the Tigers is a trip to Tuscaloosa on Saturday and Harrell said that a win there will take more than the Tigers have given on the road as of late.
"We've got to be more consistent," Harrell said. "We've been playing at home really well, but we've got to figure out a way to win on the road. Our mind is on Alabama, and that's going to be a tough road game for us. We've got to be more consistent. Period. I think that's what we'll be focusing on tomorrow."
The loss drops the Tigers to 10-8 overall, with a 2-3 record in Southeastern Conference play.
The Alabama game will tip off at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
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