Auburn never went away, but Kentucky threw the bigger punches down the stretch.

And as a result, the Wildcats won the SEC regular-season championship Saturday afternoon with a 73-66 victory over Auburn.

To Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl, the loss solidified his belief that Kentucky is the best team in the conference this season. The 'Cats now have a trophy to show for it. But it also reminded him that his Tigers aren't far off — they just couldn't get on track late in the contest.

"I thought we were good enough to win the basketball game," Pearl said postgame on the Auburn Sports Network radio broadcast. "I thought we were good enough to beat those guys. I think they're the best team in our league, but we were good enough to beat them. We just did not make the plays that we needed to make to win the game."

Auburn looked ready to run with the ‘Cats early, starting 4-for-4 from 3-point range and leading Kentucky by as many as nine points eight minutes into the game thanks to a 10-0 run. The four 3-pointers in the first five minutes were as many as Auburn had all game against Ole Miss on Tuesday.

Then the fouls started to pile up as Kentucky turned up the aggression and got on a roll of its own. The Wildcats were in the bonus nine minutes into the game, which fueled their 20-3 run that put them back in front, with all the momentum.

Austin Wiley and J’Von McCormick each dealt with two fouls in the opening half, while Danjel Purifoy, who started the game 3-for-3 from downtown, had three personal fouls by the under-4 timeout in the first half.

The Tigers didn’t crumble, however, making three of four shots immediately following that run and only trailing 33-30 at halftime.

It was Auburn’s defense keeping it in the game into the second half. The Tigers held Kentucky without a field-goal make for over seven minutes, but free throws kept the Wildcats ahead, as they connected on 27-of-33 from the stripe for the game.

"We couldn't defend them without fouling too much," Pearl said.

Auburn never trailed by more than five points and hung around just a two- or three-point deficit for the majority of the second half until the Tigers missed 12 of their final 14 shots. Kentucky continued to make its foul shots and ultimately pulled away thanks to 49 combined points from Immanuel Quickley, Nick Richards and Tyrese Maxey.

Auburn shot just 9-of-32 from the field in the second half and 2-of-16 from deep. For the game, the Tigers missed nine of their 22 attempts at the line.

"We missed too many free throws ourselves," Pearl said. "We missed some open shots in the second half."

Auburn shot just 9-of-34 (26%) from 3-point range after that hot start. Pearl said he wasn't unhappy with the number of attempts, as he and the coaching staff devised their game plan thinking they would not be given the same amount of calls attacking the basket as they might in Auburn Arena. So the Tigers would need to create from the perimeter, and they fell short in that department.

"I felt like we needed to shoot the ball from 3 because — look, you go in the paint in here, and they’re big, they block shots, and we don’t get to the foul line nearly as much here," Pearl said. "So we felt like we needed to do some things (from the perimeter).”

Auburn shot 22 free throws to Kentucky's 33.

"[The officials] wouldn't let us guard Quickley; they wouldn't let us guard — we put our hands on them and they called fouls in coverage," Pearl said. "If you're going to do that, you just can't guard them. We were in foul trouble the whole game."

Wiley notched his 13th double-double of the season with 10 points and 12 rebounds, but he picked up his fourth foul with 10 minutes left in the game and had to be used carefully down the stretch.

McCormick led the Tigers with 13 points, all of which came in the second half.

Auburn's next matchup is against Texas A&M on Wednesday. It'll be Senior Night in Auburn Arena.

“We’ve got to try to regroup and come back and finish strong," Pearl said.

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