A road matchup against the No. 6 team nationally in free-throw rate played out in predictable fashion for the chronically foul-prone Texas Longhorns in an 88-82 loss to the Auburn Tigers on Wednesday night at Neville Arena as Keyshawn Hall scored a game-high 31 points on 14 made free throws to lead the Tigers.
Although Texas took an eight-point lead into halftime, Auburn had already cut into a deficit that reached 14 points with 9:01 remaining, and Hall exploded after a good defensive first half against him by the Longhorns to shoot 6-of-8 from the floor and hit 11-of-14 free throws in scoring 25 points in the second half as the Tigers finished the game with a notable level of decisiveness and ease.
Advertisement
Bolstering Hall’s huge second half was the play of guard Kevin Overton, who scored 17 of his 25 points in the final 20 minutes, taking all three of his shot attempts from three and hitting them all, as well as his eight free-throw attempts.
In total, and in a familiar trend for these Longhorns, Texas was called for 26 fouls, often soft on drives or against shooters, that led to 39 free-throw attempts and 29 made free throws by Auburn, which had an 11-point edge in shots made from the line.
For a third straight game, junior wing Dailyn Swain was sensational for the Horns, scoring 30 points on 10-of-16 shooting and hitting all three of his three-point attempts in the first half. Once again, and in another familiar trend during conference play, Swain’s scoring output was wasted.
Junior forward Cam Heide aided Texas with 5-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc, but graduate guard Tramon Mark battled foul trouble in scoring four points on 2-of-13 shooting with six missed threes and two turnovers in 22 minutes.
Advertisement
Texas got off to a strong start offensively, bombing from three in hitting three straight attempts from beyond the arc early in the game and starting 4-of-6 to take a 14-8 lead five and a half minutes into the game, continuing to extend it behind two threes from Swain in an electrifying first half and a three from Heide.
The eight first-half threes by Sean Miller’s team tied for a season high in a half.
By the time that Swain showed off his footwork to make a jumper with 9:01 remaining, the Horns led 27-13, but sloppy play offensively allowed the Tigers to cut into the deficit by turning nine Texas turnovers into 14 first-half points as sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis gave the ball away three times and Mark and senior guard Jordan Pope each turned it over twice.
Auburn didn’t go on any significant runs in the first half to reduce the deficit to eight points at halftime, but took advantage of mistakes by Texas to avoid decisive separation with some help from a bad foul on Pope trying to contest a three by Hall, who was otherwise held in check during the opening 20 minutes — the potential four-point play was the only made field goal for Hall.
Advertisement
Early in the second half, Hall started to taking advantage of matchups against Mark, hitting a three and then driving and forcing a physical foul by Mark. Swain was a recipient of Hall’s burgeoning rhythm, too, giving up a three in his face before making a bad pass trying to feed graduate forward Lassina Traore that led to an offensive foul and turnover.
By that point, Auburn was within four points closing in on the under-16 timeout and crashing the offensive glass hard, leading to a shooting foul forced against Heide to secure a 7-0 run.
Pope had to force a late-clock contested jumper that missed on the next possession, but Swain bailed out a poor possession with a three off the dribble to end the run and hustle by senior guard Chendall Weaver led to a fast-break opportunity that Heide converted on a putback to push the lead back to eight points in a critical period before the first media timeout of the second half.
The Tigers hit two difficult threes after the under-16 timeout to cut the lead to two points and forced a timeout by Miller with 13:32 remaining thanks to four made threes by Auburn.
Advertisement
Like Steven Pearl’s team did in closing the first-half deficit, there weren’t any huge runs made by the Tigers, but the Longhorns struggled to get stops because of their issues defending without fouling and saw diminishing returns offensively even while maintaining a level of shooting efficiency that could have produced a different outcome with better defense.
As Auburn went 13-of-19 shooting from the floor (68.4 percent) and 6-of-9 shooting from three (66.7 percent), it wasn’t just the free-throwing that made the difference, it was the overall lack of defensive impact by Texas in the second half.
And that leaves the Horns at 3-5 in conference play heading into a rivalry game against a mediocre Sooner team in Norman on Saturday. It’s a winnable game for Texas, but that will require defending effectively and without fouling so often, a virus that continues to plague this team.