It certainly wasn't pretty, with Auburn leading by as many as 19 points in the first half, only to trail in the second half, but thanks to a heroic overtime from K.D. Johnson, Auburn left Starkville with an 81-68 win and a share of the SEC regular season title.
Takeaways from Auburn's roller-coaster win over Mississippi State on Wednesday night:
"It was just K.D. time" ... and another stellar outing from Jabari Smith
K.D. Johnson was completely quiet for the entirety of regulation. He had two points on 1-of-5 shooting.
Then, it was his time.
Bruce Pearl opted to roll out a Zep Jasper, Wendell Green Jr., Johnson lineup at the end of regulation and in overtime — for the first time ever, Pearl said — and Johnson took over.
In overtime he had 12 points, shooting 3-of-3 and 5-of-5 at the free throw line. The rest of Auburn's players combined for eight points and Mississippi State as a team scored seven points.
"It was just K.D. time," Pearl said. "Everybody saw it."
Johnson has found himself in somewhat of a slump recently, but an overtime explosion could be just the confidence boost Johnson needs heading into the regular season finale and the SEC Tournament.
And speaking of heroics, Jabari Smith was the anchor for Auburn all night long. Smith started perfect with 14 points in the first half and shot 5-of-5 from the floor. He ended the night with 27 points, shooting 9-of-13, 3-of-5 from deep and 6-of-7 from the free throw line. He also added 10 boards to his final stat-line.
"I felt like I was in a groove in the first half," Smith said. "Came into the second half, they jumped on us a little bit, and had to pick my scoring up, I had to be more aggressive. I’m just happy that we got the win."
It was only fitting he finished the game with an exclamation point slam dunk and completed the 3-point play after getting fouled.
A concerning trend on the boards
It's now back-to-back games for Auburn and getting crushed on the boards.
Wednesday night, Mississippi State won the rebounding battle 50-32 and had 21 offensive boards to Auburn's seven. Auburn got out-rebounded 54-31 in Knoxville and gave up 21 offensive boards that game, too.
The rebounding hasn't been that much of an issue all season for Auburn, but now in back-to-back games Auburn has gotten hammered on the boards. That'll have to change quickly, and Auburn knows it.
"I really have no answer for it," Smith said. "I just know we have to fix it, quick. We’ve got to get better at it. It’s been an emphasis. I honestly don’t think it’s effort. I honestly don’t think it’s fight or anything like that. I just feel like it’s positioning, everybody just trying to keep their man in front and not put us in a bad position to get rebounds.
"It’s been an emphasis for us. We’ve definitely got to clean it up. I have no reason for why or anything like that, but it’s definitely something that we’re emphasizing and we take notice of and we know we’ve got to clean it up."
Contributions across the board
Auburn got a total of five bench points on Saturday, all of which came from Wendell Green Jr. That's just simply not who Auburn is. Auburn has its superstars, but its also the sum of its parts.
Unlike the rebounds, that issue was quickly corrected. Auburn combined for 23 bench points against Mississippi State and had nine players score.
"Everybody contributed, if you look up and down the roster, everybody contributed," Pearl said. "Everybody scored, everybody rebounded — although we didn't rebound well enough — and we had 19 assists."
For Auburn to be successful, it needs its supporting cast behind Smith, Johnson, Walker Kessler and the other stars to continue to contribute and make an impact on the game in a positive way like it did Wednesday night.
Auburn doesn't need superstar performances out of its bench players — outside of maybe Green Jr. — it just needs similar contributions to what it got Wednesday night.
