Auburn Completes Historic Win Over Miss State

The Auburn Basketball team made one of the biggest comebacks in program history Saturday night defeating Mississippi State 65-62 in front of a sold out crowd in the Auburn Arena.

State led the Tigers by 19 points with 11:24 to go when Auburn started chipping away at the lead. Then with a little over four minutes to go, Auburn went on a 17- 0 run to bring the sellout crowd to it's feet and give Auburn it's (historic) first SEC victory in the new arena.

The 19 point comeback ties for second place as the biggest come from behind victory in program history. The other 19 point comeback occurred in a 73 - 70 win over LSU in 1999.

The Bulldogs gave up five turnovers in the last four minutes and  State was not able to attempt a field goal during the Tiger barrage. On the other hand Auburn shot 55.6 percent in the second half and hit 7-of-12 from the foul line.

Sophomore Earnest Ross came through again for the Tigers with 21 points and seven rebounds and Kenny Gabriel had 18 points and five rebounds.

Rob Chubb returned from a two game suspension to score 6 points in 15 minutes coming off the bench. Coach Barbee said Chubb had learned a hard lesson, served his punishment, and had apologized to the team for his actions. Barbee said, "He's a college kid that made a dumb decission ... It doesn't mean you throw him under the bus and forget about him."

Barbee added, "The thing that I liked, down whatever it was in the second half, the guys didn't pack it in. We haven't all year long."

Ross said, "Coach told us that as long as we believe, we have a chance to win and at least compete in every game."

In sports, believing is a big part of any team's success. And lately it seems like this team of little David's, believes enough to take on any Goliath of an opponent.

Good thing to because after the Tigers play a solid Rebel team at Ole Miss on Wednesday, they are scheduled to return to the arena Saturday for a 3:00 pm tip off against SEC Goliath - Vanderbilt.