Kentucky overwhelms Auburn, 86-54, as Tigers drop 5th straight road game

Zep Jasper’s corner 3-pointer bounced high off the rim, kissed the backboard and then took another bounce on the front of the iron as Kentucky’s Jacob Toppin mistimed his jump for the rebound.

Jaylin Williams, on the other hand, didn’t. Auburn’s senior forward came flying down the lane, grabbed the rebound and threw it down for a putback slam. The excitement was palpable for Auburn, which found itself with a one-point lead on the road against Kentucky with 5:24 to go in the first half at Rupp Arena — a venue that has haunted the Tigers throughout their series history with the Wildcats.

Everything went downhill after that, as Auburn was dealt an 86-54 loss Saturday afternoon in Lexington, Ky., that extended its losing streak at Rupp Arena to 20 games since the program’s last win there 35 years ago.

“We got beat in every facet of the game,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “We weren’t competitive. We were obviously ready to play, because we played well early, but from the last 4 minutes of the first half, all the way through the second half, very, very poor performance, very, very poor effort. I apologize to our fans for such a letdown.”

After Williams’ putback dunk, Auburn offense went into a drought; the Tigers made just one of their final nine shots in the half as Kentucky closed the half on a 16-4 run to take an 11-point lead into the break. It only got worse from there for the Tigers, who made just one of their first five shots in the second half and watched as the Wildcats only widened the gap the rest of the way.

Kentucky led by as many as 40 in the second half, as Auburn shot 33.3 percent from the floor after halftime and made just nine of its final 33 shots (27.3 percent) after starting the game 10-of-23 following Williams’ putback in the first half. The result was another Quad 1 loss and a fifth straight road setback for Auburn, which fell to 19-10 on the year and 9-7 in SEC play and finds itself on the outside looking in for a potential double-bye in the SEC Tournament with two games remaining on the schedule: Wednesday at No. 2 Alabama and next Saturday at home against No. 11 Tennessee.

“It was a complete domination on both ends of the floor, and it really hurts our NCAA (Tournament) hopes, because of the margins,” Pearl said. “We’ve got to regroup…. We’ve got to win one of those, at least.”

Here are AL.com’s takeaways from Saturday’s result at Rupp Arena:

Fast start, frustrating finish for Johni Broome

In a matchup of two of the best big men in the SEC, Johni Broome and Oscar Tshiebwe didn’t disappoint in the early goings at Rupp Arena, as both standout bigs got off to hot starts for their respective teams.

Broome scored nine of Auburn’s first 11 points against Kentucky and helped force two early shot-clock violations against the Wildcats, as the Tigers started strong on the road. Tshiebwe, meanwhile, opened the game 5-of-5 from the field and accounted for eight of Kentucky’s first 12 points of the afternoon.

It was a heavyweight bout early on between the two, but after Broome’s fast start, the advantage swung in Tshiebwe’s favor. Broome started 4-of-5 from the floor in the game’s first 7 ½ minutes, but he attempted just one shot between the 12:33 mark of the first half and the 6:45 mark in the second half — going a full 20 minutes of game time with just one shot attempt. During that stretch, Broome also got into foul trouble. He picked up his second foul with seven seconds to go in the first half on a touch-foul during a baseline jumper by Tshiebwe. Broome’s third and fourth fouls came in relatively quick succession in the second half: He was tabbed for his third with 14:22 to play in the game, while his fourth came 70 seconds later, with 13:12 to play and Auburn trailing by 17.

Broome finished with 12 points and just one rebound, while Tshiebwe put together a monster stat line for Kentucky. The reigning National Player of the Year had 22 points and 17 boards while posting a first-half double-double (14 points and 10 rebounds in 19 minutes). He helped Kentucky dominate the glass, as Auburn was outrebounded, 41-23, on the afternoon — with the Wildcats grabbing 12 offensive rebounds to the Tigers’ 13 defensive boards.

“The physicality of Kentucky — you look at the rebounding numbers, we just got dominated on the boards,” Pearl said. “…We just, you know, just the numbers were incredible. Tshiebwe and Toppin physically had their way with us.”

Auburn needed more from its supporting cast, again

It has become a familiar refrain from Bruce Pearl, who so often has lamented the lack of production Auburn has gotten from its bench. On Saturday afternoon at Rupp, Auburn again needed more from its supporting cast, as it got just 13 points from its bench.

“The guys weren’t playing together, weren’t playing for each other and weren’t helping each other out,” said Pearl, who noted the Tigers had just one first-half assist. “That’s the key to being able to play in a hostile environment is trusting each other and relying on each other on both ends of the floor, and we don’t. We didn’t.”

The Tigers did not get any points from their bench in the first half, when Jaylin Williams (10 points), Johni Broome (nine points), Wendell Green Jr. (six points) and Allen Flanigan (four points) accounted for all the team’s scoring in the opening stanza. The trio of Williams, Broome and Green were the only Tigers to score in the game’s first 17-plus minutes — until Flanigan banked in a tough jumper from the left wing with 2:53 to go in the half.

Flanigan scored each of Auburn’s final four points in the half, and they were the only points for the Tigers over the final 5:24 of the half, as Kentucky closed on a 16-4 run after Auburn staked a 25-24 lead on that dunk by Williams. The Tigers made just one of their final nine shots — the jumper by Flanigan — to end the half.

Auburn didn’t get any points from its bench until the 14:36 mark in the second half, when K.D. Johnson drained a 3-pointer. At that point, Auburn was already trailing by 15 and in a hole too deep to dig out of Saturday afternoon. Johnson finished with seven points, while backup point guard Tre Donaldson had three, backup forward Chris Moore scored one, and Dylan Cardwell had two. Donaldson, Moore and Cardwell’s points didn’t come until the final 2:02 of action. Moore split a pair of free throws with 2:02 left. Cardwell got a fastbreak dunk with 1:14 to play, while Donaldson hit a 3-pointer with 37 seconds to go in the lopsided loss.

Auburn desperately needed more from its reserves, especially with the troubles the core scorers had after that valiant start. Green finished with just nine points on 3-of-12 shooting, as he struggled to finish at the rim with the same efficiency he showed in Wednesday’s win against Ole Miss, and he had just two assists with a pair of turnovers on the day. Williams led Auburn with 13 points, but it came on just 5-of-14 shooting, though he was the Tigers’ best 3-point shooter at Rupp while connecting on 3-of-7 attempts from deep. Flanigan finished with seven but did not rebound anywhere near the level Auburn has come to expect from him, grabbing just one board on the day.

“In order to play well offensively and defensively, you got to be able to play together, trust each other, and we obviously — as a team, we did not,” Pearl said. “We go as Wendell goes, and obviously Wendell struggled, but he obviously did not have a lot of help.”

Kentucky made Auburn pay from deep

Kentucky isn’t a volume-shooting team from 3-point range, but they usually make them count from deep. The Wildcats entered the game averaging 18.1 attempts from beyond the arc, which is 319th among all Division-I programs, but their 36.2 percent clip on those shots is 76th in the country.

Against Auburn, it was a similar story for Kentucky, which shot 8-of-13 from 3-point range at Rupp Arena. That included a blistering start in the first half, when the Wildcats went 5-of-6 from deep—a stretch that included back-to-back makes from Toppin and Cason Wallace as part of an 8-0 run by Kentucky to close the first half and go into the break up double digits.

Wallace was 2-of-2 from deep and finished with 19 points, while much of the damage from 3-point range came courtesy of Antonio Reeves, who was 4-of-7 from beyond the arc and had 21 points for the Wildcats. Reeves caught fire in the second half, when he was 3-of-5 from deep and made each of his last four shot attempts as Kentucky ran away with it in the second half.

“They’ve got great players at every position,” Pearl said. “They’ve got pros at every position…. They’re just, in a lot of ways, really superior. Look, the cream rises to the top, and it’s late in the year. Kentucky’s got some really good players. John (Calipari) does a really good job…. They’re playing very well right now, and I would expect this to continue.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.

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