NCAAM: Auburn is explaining loss to Kentucky

“I’ve come in here before and got smacked like that, and it’s embarrassing. Because you know good basketball, and you know really bad basketball. We were ready to play. You could tell early we had a really good game plan, and then with about three or four minutes left to go in the first half, things just started to unravel a bit,” said Bruce Pearl after Auburn’s humiliating 40-point loss to Kentucky.

“Our guys just didn’t stay together. You can’t have one assist in the first half, and you’ve got to kind of just work together offensively to make each other better, and we just didn’t. And of course, the same thing happened on the defensive end as well. So, Auburn was not competitive at all today,” he added.

The loss dropped Auburn to 9-7 in conference play, six games behind Alabama for the SEC’s top spot. The team still has a chance to improve their standing with an upcoming game against the Crimson Tide, which would boost their poor 2-8 record in Quad 1 matchups this season.

Pearl admitted that a performance like Auburn’s against Kentucky is concerning this close to March, saying, “It can be chalked up as a fluke, but trailing any team by 40 just a few days from March is worrisome to say the least.”

This season’s Auburn team is not as explosive as those of past years and has struggled to score at times. “They’re defensive-minded, and things have fallen off the rails fast. Pearl’s squad is going to need to get back on those tracks even faster if they don’t want their season to be ended prematurely,” said Barkley Truax.