Dreadful second half leads to disastrous loss

Lexington | Everything that could go wrong went wrong for Auburn, especially in the second half.

After going up 25-24 with 5:24 left in the first half, Auburn allowed Kentucky to go on a 62-21 run en route to an 86-54 thumping.

"We got beat in every facet of the game," said Coach Bruce Pearl. "We weren't competitive."

Ole Miss roughed up Auburn on the boards on Wednesday and Pearl said that Auburn would lose by 40 if it continued that trend

The trend continued, Kentucky outrebounded Auburn 41-23 with 12 of its boards being offensive. Pearl was off by just eight points.

"They were much more physical than we were and played that way on both ends of the floor," Pearl said. "Tshiebwe is the most physical player in the game. Toppin is big, strong, bouncy, physical. Their wings are big... Physically, it was a mismatch."

Auburn center Johni Broome started off with nine points in the first seven minutes, but after that, he only managed three more points.

Why? Auburn's playmakers couldn't get him the ball.

"When you only have one assist in the first half, it's really hard to score many more buckets," Pearl said. "You've got to get your big the ball, and we didn't do a very good job of getting him the ball like we did earlier in the game. We went away from it."

Auburn was one and done on most of its shot attempts in the second half and Kentucky took full advantage and ran.

The Wildcats put up 27 points on fast break chances and averaged 1.857 points per possession in transition.

"Transition hurt us throughout the last four minutes and then the entire second half," Pearl said.

When Kentucky wasn't running, it was driving downhill. The Wildcats had 36 points in the paint and shot 10-for-13 on layup attempts.

"We couldn't stay in front of them," Pearl said. "I thought that was the difference. ... Couldn't keep them in front. Couldn't guard them."