The Auburn Tigers (14-12, 5-8) are in a must-win situation on Saturday night when they host the Kentucky Wildcats (17-9, 8-3) at Neville Arena. Auburn has now lost five consecutive games and is on the bubble for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. A major issue this team has had in this losing skid is getting behind early in games.
"We've got to make a decision on how we're going to start games. We can't wait until we're down 18 to start playing desperate. We've got to play desperate when it's 0-0," said head coach Steven Pearl after losing to Mississippi State on Wednesday.
Auburn was behind as many as 18 points against Mississippi State with 1:05 until halftime and trailed by as many as 15 on more than one occasion in the first half. Josh Hubbard had a lot to do with that, scoring 35 points in the first half. Auburn cannot continue that trend if they want to be part of March Madness.
The losing streak started with a 77-69 loss to Tennessee, where the Tigers were down 16-6 before five minutes of game time had passed. Before halftime, they were down by as much as 37-21 with 5:22 remaining in the first half. In the next game versus Alabama, Auburn never trailed by a big margin. In the third game of the streak, Auburn hosted Vanderbilt. The Commodores outscored Auburn 42-31 in the first half. The game remained close for most of the second half, but Vanderbilt used an 11-2 run to create some distance. The game was tied at 26 with 6:03 until halftime before the run.
A fast start and big first half will be needed for Auburn to end its losing streak and get a win over Kentucky. Auburn will need to approach the first minutes of the game as they have in the second half of these games, where they have found themselves down double digits early. Auburn is currently on the bubble, according to ESPN's Joe Lunardi, along with UCF, Texas A&M, and Ohio State. A win over the Wildcats should bump the Tigers up and out of that group.
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This article originally appeared on Auburn Wire: Auburn basketball needs a fast start on Saturday vs Kentucky