Auburn continues road woes, loses in Oxford 82-67

Something is wrong with this Auburn basketball team. Road games are much harder than they need to be.

The 11th ranked team in the country (not for long) opened up conference play on the road into Oxford, Mississippi to take on Kermit Davis and the Ole Miss Rebels. Ole Miss was not supposed to be very good this year, but opinions could be quickly changing.

The Tigers (11-3) fell to the upstart Rebels (12-2) by 15 points at The Pavilion.

Terence Davis led all scorers with 27 to go along with 12 rebounds. The junior guard had one of his best nights as a Rebel as he seemed to knock down every shot he took.

Meanwhile, Bryce Brown was the lone bright spot for the Tigers, scoring 23 points. Malik Dunbar had a wild night but managed to score 11.

The momentum was all Ole Miss most of the night, and even though the Tigers cut it to one or two possessions a few different times in the second half, the Rebels kept responding every time.

Auburn was decent on the night from deep, but only managed to get 8 buckets inside against an opponent that they thought they would have some success with. Austin Wiley scored 6 and all came on free throws, while Horace Spencer and Anfernee McLemore combined to score 4 points. The only thing McLemore got his name in the stat sheet for was for committing 5 fouls.

There is something off with this team right now. Danjel Purifoy’s return has not made any impact at all, and judging by his body language on the bench, he doesn’t really seem to care.

I hate being harsh about student athletes because they truly go through a lot, but this basketball team and this group of players has a distinct identity going back to last season and that is they do not play good at all on the road.

Granted, they did beat Tennessee in Knoxville last season but overall, their worst performances came away from Auburn Arena. It is tough to say what the reasoning behind it all is, but one thing is for sure. If the Tigers want to compete for real this season, nights like Wednesday night cannot happen on a regular basis.

Bruce Pearl and his team will get back to work and try to find some answers before taking on a Georgia team that beat Vanderbilt by 19 points on Wednesday. The game is at 3:00 on Saturday inside Auburn Arena. The SEC is no slouch this year, folks.