Auburn Embarrassed by South Carolina 69-98

That was embarrassing. South Carolina jumped out to a 9-0 lead and that was a harbinger of things to come. It was so bad that when Austin Wiley missed two free throw attempts with just over 4 minutes to go, the play-by-play crew was getting excited for the fact that there was going to be free Chick-fil-A for those at the game afterwards because of the missed shots.

This is a team that has been so up and down throughout the course of the year that it's really hard to figure out what to take away from this one. They didn't look this inept against Kentucky and that was without Purifoy. I don't know what happened to Auburn, tonight, but the Tigers couldn't rebound to save their lives and were leaving South Carolina wide open to reach a season-high in made three-pointers.

Auburn kept it close for part of the first half. South Carolina pulled away in the closing minutes of the half, though, and stretched their lead to a ridiculous 21 points at 48-27 at the break. It didn't get any better in the second half, either. The Gamecocks just kept scoring and Auburn had no answers. By the end of the game, it looked like Auburn wasn't even trying to play defense against the relentless three-point shots.

One of the lone bright spots for Auburn was freshman Austin Wiley recording his first career double-double. Anfernee McLemore also had a career high in points for the season with 18. Mustapha Heron finished the game with 10 to keep his double-digit streak going.

Auburn now has to travel all the way to Ft. Worth this weekend to take on TCU as part of the Big XII / SEC Challenge. They really need a good showing in that one to regain a bit of the confidence from that two-game winning streak that has to have taken a big hit with this loss.