No. 2 Auburn struggled to make critical shots from the field down the stretch in the second half in its first loss of the season inside of a rocking Cameron Indoor Stadium on Wednesday night 84-78 to No. 9 Duke.
“We're disappointed, obviously. We played okay. But, to play Duke in here, you have to play great. Give them all the credit,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said following the loss.
The Blue Devils led by as many as 12 with 16:11 remaining in the second half but the Tigers, despite bringing Duke’s lead within a single possession three separate times and the home team never leading by more than seven from the 13:51 mark on, never led again.
“We couldn't break it, but it was definitely something that was good, you know, knowing that we had a chance to come back and take the lead, but just wasn't fighting hard enough for us,” Auburn point guard Tahaad Pettiford said of the Tigers inability to take back the lead.
Following a 6-0 run by Auburn to cut Duke’s lead to two points with 7:04 remaining in the top-10 showdown, the Tigers hit just one shot from the field, a Pettiford jumper, until the 42 second mark.
Despite the Tigers making just four of their last 16 shots from the field against the Blue Devils, Duke was only able to extend its lead by five thanks to Auburn shooting 4-for-5 from the charity stripe during the stretch.
“They knew they were playing an older team, a team that can play physically. And I thought in many ways, they played more physically than we did,” Pearl said.
Two Tigers were able to score double figures in the second half alone; Johni Broome with 15 points shooting 6-for-9 and Pettiford with 14 points shooting 6-for-10 with two makes from deep, but the rest of the squad saw no individual player make more than one shot from the field.
Outside of Broome and Pettiford in the second half, the rest of the Tigers shot 4-for-14 totaling 13 points.
“But our defense let us down,” Pearl said. “If you're going to come in here, you score 78 points against Duke, and you only turn them over eight times in here, you should come out with a win. But Duke was brilliant, offensively, executed really well.”
For the Blue Devils each half had its own star; the first was Isaiah Evans with 18 points shooting 6-of-8 from deep followed by true freshman star Cooper Flagg with 16 second half points shooting 5-of-10 from the field and 6-of-9 from the charity stripe.
“Obviously Cooper flag, I think it was one of his better games tonight. Didn't have a turnover, so we didn't bother him enough, and he go to the foul line. He gets a great whistle. He's a great player,” Pearl said.
The No. 2 Tigers will have a chance to bounce back for their first loss of the season as they return home to take on the Richmond Spiders on Sunday, Dec. 8 with tipoff scheduled for 11 a.m. CST.
“Everybody expects Duke to get a lot better because they're so young, and I think they will, but nobody expects our team to get better because we're older, but I got a lot of older guys that are playing a lot of new roles,” Pearl said.
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Patrick is a junior from Auburn, Alabama, double majoring in journalism and marketing. He started with The Plainsman in the fall of 2022.
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