Auburn vs Florida Recap: Tigers Fall 75-55

I would like to call this "a tale of two halves," but since Auburn lost the second half as well, I don't know if that really fits. The Tigers went into the half down 37-20. The game ended with a final of 75-55. So while the first half was awful, the Tigers actually played Florida very close in the second half.

Unfortunately for Auburn, that doesn't matter. Slow starts and poor scoring doomed the Tigers from the beginning. Let's take a look at the Game Flow:

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Yet another example of a game where Auburn went stone cold from the floor for a significant period of time.

Auburn has a history of relying on one major scoring threat, and when that player has a bad night, the team as a whole has a bad night. I really thought the addition of Antoine Mason to the line-up would help alleviate that issue. At times it has, but at other times Mason has gone cold, as well. When he and KT Harrell are both cold... you end up with Auburn's first half, tonight.

KT Harrell didn't score his first points until 25 minutes into the game. For a significant period of time Auburn's leading scorer was Alex Thompson. I don't mean that as a knock on Thompson at all, I'm glad he was shooting well and doing things that apparently others weren't doing, but if Auburn's relying on him to be the scoring threat, then the Tigers are in trouble.

This was a bad loss by the scoreboard, but there are still some things to take away from it. This team still never gives up. They closed the gap to within 10 at one point in the 2nd half, but even when that slipped away, the Tigers still played hard enough that the final margin was only three points greater than the half time margin. They could easily have given in and let the game get really out of hand, but instead they played until the final buzzer and didn't let the game get further away from them.

The Tigers are still winless on the road. Auburn has only dropped one game at home, though, and thankfully they return to the friendly confines of Auburn Arena Saturday evening against South Carolina.

War Eagle always.