Auburn basketball’s 2023-24 college basketball season came to a screeching halt in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament on Friday.
The 4 seed Tigers and 2024 SEC Tournament champions entered as a trendy pick to make a deep March Madness run. That was to start first with a 13 seed Yale team that had just seven NCAA Tournament appearances in program history, and just one victory since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
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Instead, Auburn became a victim of March Madness, falling 78-76 to James Jones’ Yale team. It was obviously a disappointing result for the Tigers and coach Bruce Pearl, who after the game felt the need to apologize to the SEC for his team’s failure to advance past the first round.
“Well first you got to give Yale credit,” Pearl told sideline reporter Lauren Shehadi in a postgame interview. “They played a great game. We played them a couple years ago, and so they knew how we play. They were able to handle our pressure, particularly did a better job in the second half. They made shots, they made plays. That’s a really good champion.
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“I feel like I want to apologize to the SEC. We were the tournament champions, and we did not win, we didn’t advance, we didn’t represent the SEC like we’re capable. I’m very proud of my team. They grinded all year long, and they had a terrific season.”
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Auburn was forced to adjust early with the ejection of Chad Baker-Mazada, who was issued a Flagrant 2 foul for elbowing Yale’s August Mahoney in the stomach — something Pearl described as a retaliatory hit. Even without Baker-Mazada, the Tigers entered halftime with a 41-37 lead, and held numerous 10-point leads in the second half, including a 68-58 advantage with 7:35 left to play.
But The Tigers were held to just eight points and three made field goals after that point in the game, and made just two of their seven free throw attempts to end the game (including 2 of 6 in the game’s final minute). Even with those miscues, Auburn had a chance for a walk-off 3 to end the game from K.D. Johnson. It was off the mark, bringing the score to its final conclusion.
Auburn wasn’t the only team from the SEC to suffer an early-round exit, however. With its loss to Yale, the SEC dropped to 1-5 in the NCAA Tournament. Texas A&M and Alabama, both of which finished their games after Auburn, won their respective games to bring the conference’s record to 3-5 alongside Tennessee, which won on Thursday.
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