Bruce Pearl assumed well before tipoff that his team was going to be on the short end of the whistle in Rupp Arena.

It would only be natural, Pearl thought, that Kentucky would get more calls driving to the basket on its home floor. After all, Auburn shot 44 free throws to the Wildcats' 24 in the first matchup between the teams in Auburn Arena on Feb. 1.

And Pearl's game plan for his offense — devised to combat the expected discrepancy in fouls — was red-hot at first, but gradually cooled over the course of the 73-66 loss Saturday.

"I didn’t think if we drove and there was contact, I wasn’t confident we would shoot free throws," Pearl said. "We are on the road, playing at Rupp (Arena). I figured we needed to shoot a little bit, and I thought we did."

Auburn made its first four triples of the game en route to an early 9-point lead before missing 25 of its next 30 attempts from downtown.

The Tigers couldn't bookend the game with good shooting, either, missing 16 of their final 19 attempts on the afternoon and going the final 5:36 without a made basket until Austin Wiley's layup with 4 seconds remaining.

“Because Kentucky leads the league in blocked shots, and they blocked some shots," Pearl said of why his Tigers kept shooting. "The closer that you get to the basket at Kentucky, you don’t always – look, if we made some of those shots in the second half and made a couple of free throws, we are right there. But we didn’t.”

Auburn's leaders, like senior J'Von McCormick, who scored all of his team-high 13 points in the second half, were on board with the offensive scheme and saw it work early against the Wildcats. What did the Tigers in was simply execution, they said.

"That’s what we do, try to come out and execute. They gave us a good game plan," McCormick said. "They sunk it knowing we drove a lot last game, so we just have to be ready to make shots.”

When the Tigers did dial back on the treys and elected to drive inside with Samir Doughty, slash with Isaac Okoro or feed Wiley under the basket, they didn't get the job done from the charity stripe, shooting just 13-of-22 from the foul line.

Kentucky, on the other hand, showed why it's the No. 1-ranked free-throw shooting squad in the conference, making 27 of its 33 attempts (82%).

"They make 27 free throws, we make 22 field goals," Pearl said. "... Big fact of the game is that we missed free throws.”

For all the flak the Tigers have caught for their 3-point shooting, which is now the 35th-worst out of 353 college basketball teams in the country at 29.9% for the season, they left free points at the foul line in a game that Kentucky didn't lead by more than five in the second half in until 2:39 remained.

Auburn is now 298th in the nation in free-throw shooting percentage for the season.

To be fair to the other side of the ball, Pearl noted that his team didn't defend well enough without fouling. Kentucky was going to convert on its foul shots at the line, and Auburn couldn't afford to give John Calipari's team 33 freebies, especially as UK guards Immanuel Quickley and Tyrese Maxey combined to shoot 18-of-19 on free throws.

“I know we didn’t shoot as well and they defended us really well," Pearl said. "You have to make shots and you have to defend without fouling. Kentucky did a good job. ... They made the adjustments. They played the way they needed to play and it obviously helped serve them.”

The only team shooting worse than Auburn from 3-point range in the SEC this season is Texas A&M, which the Tigers will face Wednesday for Senior Night in Auburn Arena.

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