The Tigers fell in head coach Steven Pearl’s first experience in the Iron Bowl of Basketball by a score of 96-92. In front of a packed-out Neville Arena crowd, the fans got a tremendous rivalry matchup, but ultimately the home squad fell short in a back-and-forth fight.
The Tigers would end up being outshot by 8% from field-goal range and 20% from the 3-point line. The main factors that would keep Auburn alive would be timely shooting and getting a huge 20 points off turnovers to keep them alive throughout the contest.
“Our best players have to be better defenders,” Pearl said. “That can be a challenge, and they can take that, you know, they can take that in a negative way or they can take it as me just, you know, knowing that they’re capable because they’ve shown the ability to do so.”
In the first five-minute iteration of the game, Auburn was beating the Tide at their own game of putting up more shots and moving fast, giving the Tigers an early four-point lead, putting up 14 shots from the field to Alabama’s eight shots.
For the second five-minute iteration after the break, the Tigers expanded their lead all the way to eight points, playing tough basketball and eliminating second and third chance baskets for the Tide.
Alabama would gather a lot of momentum back as they tried to crawl out of their deficit when the Tigers’ Kevin Overton got a flagrant 1 foul on Amari Allen, who hit both of his free throws, which then resulted in Alabama getting possession, allowing them to get two more to cut the lead further with a bucket from Aidan Sherrell.
At the end of the first half, the Tigers still held onto the consistent lead they had throughout most of the game, going into the locker room up 41-37. Despite Alabama shooting 52% from the field compared to Auburn’s 40%, the deciding factor thus far was fundamental rebounding and taking care of the basketball, as Auburn had six more rebounds than the Tide and only two turnovers compared to Alabama’s nine.
“The first 18 minutes we did a great job defending them,” Pearl said, “And they did a lot of things that we wanted them to do. They were shooting tough contested twos which is kind of what the scouting report was.”
With around 14 minutes remaining in the game, the Tide came back to tie it for the first time since the opening tip when another major flagrant foul call on Auburn’s Keyshawn Hall put Alabama’s Sherrell at the line and gave them momentum.
Ultimately, Alabama kept the momentum as the Auburn defense began to break down as the game went on. The Tide began getting more looks and capitalizing on them. Even with both Tahaad Pettiford and Hall scoring more than 20 points, the failure of the defense proved to be too much.
The Tide held on to win the game thanks to a strong late effort from former Tiger Aden Holloway, who hit a massive and-one 3-pointer and converted the free throw to extend the Tide’s lead to six. He later followed that up with five more points in the final two minutes to cement the Tigers’ shortcoming.
The Tigers will look to bounce back on Tuesday as they host a stout Vanderbilt squad in Neville Arena at 6:00 p.m. CST.
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Reid is a sophomore majoring in accounting. He joined the Plainsman in the fall of 2024.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @ReidFarris2
