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Auburn falls to Texas A&M 71-61: Three Things We Learned

KT Harrell and the Tigers struggled to score points as Auburn dropped another home game to an SEC opponent

By Bobby Barkley
Tahj Shamsid-Deen did not see the court in the second half tonight.
Tahj Shamsid-Deen did not see the court in the second half tonight.
John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

Frustration.

That's the word of the night for Auburn hoops. With a chance to move to 11-9 on the season, the Tigers dropped a game at home to the Texas A&M Aggies (14-5, 5-2 SEC) to move to 10-10 overall and 2-5 in SEC play. While the season is certainly far from over, 11-9 would've been a great starting point to a mid-season comeback for Bruce Pearl and the Tigers.

KT Harrell was not locked in tonight. Tahj Shamsid-Deen's shoulder is more serious than we thought. Alex Thompson needs some defensive pointers. And the list goes on and on.

All of these things, believe it or not, are fixable—even the shoulder (we hope, and we wish Shamsid-Deen a speedy recovery)—but it's going to take more time than perhaps we thought (even being realistic about Pearl's ability to turn the Tigers around this season). To have at least gotten some breathing room tonight with a home win against a good Aggie team would've perhaps made the negative aspects of the game seem less, well, negative, but there should be a few more opportunities for Auburn to beef up its resume before March rolls around.

Without further ado, here's what we learned tonight:

1. Texas A&M is a pretty good team. Like, really good.

He might have doinked two dunks tonight, but Danuel House was on fire. He scored 22 points and went 6-7 behind the arc. And yeah, for those of you reading that, that's House we're talking about (not Harrell, who's usually posting that kind of a line)—the same House that went 1-7 against Tennessee last week. If House is this hot through the rest of the season, A&M is going to shock some folks at the SEC Tournament. Bruce Pearl allegedly said that A&M might be the second-best team in the SEC right now. He's certainly not wrong.

We knew that A&M was a good team, but it was frustrating to watch Auburn play somewhat lethargically tonight. Granted, the Jungle was not as packed as it was against Mississippi State (I'm going to blame professors for scheduling research papers this week), but even a moderately packed Auburn Arena deserves a better performance from the Tigers. Flashes of brilliance here and there are simply not enough to put away teams like A&M, and here's the bad news—the schedule doesn't get much easier from here on out.

Cinmeon once again hit double-digit scoring, but was unable to post another double-double with only 8 rebounds. A&M showed up to play on both ends of the court, and like Harrell, it was clearly a frustrating night for Bowers as he earned a technical foul in tonight's game.

2. A frustrated KT Harrell is not a good KT Harrell

It wasn't a terrible night for KT, but for a guy who's scored at least 20 points in each of the last three games, it could've been much better. Harrell was clearly frustrated tonight, and he wasn't even able to score until the second half:

KT Harrell is the second leading scorer in the SEC, and he is typically a 3-pointer machine. Solid drives usually lead to a great free-throw percentage for Harrell as well, but there wasn't much of that, either. KT's struggles pretty much spelled our entire team's troubles tonight:

Shooting all around was stale for Auburn, and in a bizzarro-world twist, free-throws actually did us a bigger favor than our FG percentage. The Tigers went 71% from the line tonight. Astounding. Once Auburn can put consistent offense together with that kind of FT percentage, look out, SEC. But as we all understand, this is not going to happen overnight.

3. Get that kid a new set of ankles—Tahj just broke 'em/Contact Lenses are a problem for some folks

Hey, things weren't all bad tonight. Flash of brilliance, engage. No description even needed:

Now if we could just bionically heal Tahj's shoulder. Tahj came out in the second half with a wrap on his shoulder and did not play the rest of the night:

And what was with contact lenses tonight?

Wear goggles, kids.

Once again, here are your tweets from the game, which, like wine, get better with age...er...time. Whatever.

AUBURN VS. TEXAS A&M TWEETS:

After an 8-0 run by the Aggies early in the game:

Things looking grim?

THEN THE ANKLE-BREAKING COMMENCES:

Looks like we've found the source of Auburn's offensive woes...

...annndddd defensive woes, too:

Auburn did begin to chip away at the Aggies' first-half lead:

Halftime entertainment was suspect, according to Twitter:

*shot

Second half action:

I mean, he really was polite...

Yikes...but I agree here:

I LIKE THIS:

War Damn Eagle, always, folks. Time to get ready for the Vols on Saturday. We'll see y'all then.

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