GREENVILLE | Jabari Smith and Walker Kessler have carried Auburn for much of this season.

But the SEC Freshman of the Year and SEC Defensive Player of the Year could never get going in the Tigers 79-61 loss to Miami Sunday night in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Smith and Kessler combined to shoot 1 of 11 from the floor in the second half and 3 of 19 for game.

“It's like sometimes when you talk to the losing coach and he doesn't have the answers, because I don't have the answers,” said Auburn coach Bruce Pearl. “Jabari and Walker have been as consistent as anybody we've had, right? Part of it is just getting off to a bad start. Walker picked up two early fouls, missed a couple of easy ones early.

“I thought Miami, I thought their ball pressure, it bothered us early. We came down, and we got disrupted.”

Smith, who was AU’s leading scorer averaging 17.3 points per game, was held to 10 points against the Hurricanes, shooting 3 of 16 from the floor including 1 of 8 from 3-point range.

He did finish with a career-high 15 rebounds in what is expected to be his final college game.

“They're just very physical on every catch,” said Smith. “They sent somebody any time I tried to attack or make a move. They just kept bodies on me. They switched every ball screen. So just made it kind of tough for me.”

Kessler only played four minutes in the second half after picking up two early fouls, and finished with two points on 0 of 6 shooting, two rebounds and two blocked shots.

Kessler, who was averaging 11.7 points, 8.2 rebounds and 4.6 blocks, didn’t play for the final 6:27 of the game.

With Smith and Kessler struggling, Pearl inserted Jaylin Williams at the 5 position and junior responded with 12 points on 5 of 8 shooting.

“When Walker got in foul trouble, we started rotating Jaylin at the five,” said Pearl. “We didn't do it so much this year because Dylan Cardwell and Walker were so good at the five and so consistent, there really wasn't much need to, but we were down.

“So we needed to have them both (Smith and Williams) out there on the floor a little bit. And just in the last five or six minutes Jaylin would have played so well that we just had him up there.”

Auburn finishes the season 28-6 overall, the third-most wins in school history. AU won the SEC regular season championship for the fourth time in school history.