The Auburn Tigers did not build off their momentum after defeating Arkansas when they traveled to Missouri on Wednesday night. Auburn lost its third SEC game of the season against Missouri, 84-74, to drop to 1-3 to start the conference schedule.
Auburn jumped out to an early 3-0 lead thanks to a Kevin Overton three-pointer, and led by as many as seven points in the first half before TO Barrett’s layup with 7:26 remaining in the opening half pushed Missouri ahead for good. Auburn’s stars did not perform to their standard, and the defense did not slow down the Tigers’ offense as they made 27 field goals and executed six dunks.
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Auburn will now look to rebound on Saturday when it returns home to host the South Carolina Gamecocks. Here are five key stats from Auburn’s loss to Missouri.
Struggling stars
Auburn did not receive a big performance from its best two players, Keyshawn Hall and Tahaad Pettiford. The duo combined for just 19 points and were 5-of-21 from the floor on Wednesday night. They also missed all eight three point attempts between the two. Auburn will struggle whenever those two are not playing well, and that was a big reason why they lost to Missouri.
Fast break
Missouri held the edge with 22 fast break points to Auburn’s only getting nine. That is a 13-point advantage that helped determine the winner of the game. If Auburn had just cut that total in half, they could have come away with a victory versus Missouri.
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Missouri stars effective
While Hall and Pettiford struggled, the stars for Missouri played well. Leading scorer Mark Mitchell scored 20 points and pulled down five rebounds. He also had five assists in the game. Jayden Stone led the way with 22 points, and he was 7-of-10 on field goals.
Bench scoring
The Missouri bench outscored Auburn 31-21, and overall, they played ten players versus Auburn, just playing eight on Wednesday night. Guard Trent Pierce had his best performance of the season for Missouri. He scored 18 points in the game and was 5 of 7 from the three-point line. His other season high in scoring was ten points versus Florida and Ole Miss. The leading scorer off the bench for Auburn was Elyjah Freeman with 13 points.
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Lack of three-point shooting
Auburn struggled from distance in the game, going 6-for-21. On the other side, Missouri made 9-of-19, shooting 47%. Pierce had the most three-pointers made with five in the game, and Stone made two. For Auburn, Kevin Overton and Freeman hit five of the shots for them. Auburn will need to shoot better from beyond the three-point line to get more wins in the SEC.
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This article originally appeared on Auburn Wire: Auburn basketball: Five key stats from loss to Missouri
