Texas A&M Beats Auburn 71-62 To Advance At SEC
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Elston Turner scored 22 points even with his broken left pinkie wrapped up in a splint, and the Texas A&M Aggies beat Auburn 71-62 Wednesday night in their first Southeastern Conference tournament game.
Texas A&M (18-14) came to the tournament having lost four of five. But the 11th-seeded Aggies drew the SEC's last-place team in Auburn, and now they will play sixth-seeded Missouri on Thursday night in a matchup of the former Big 12 teams.
Alex Caruso added 14 points, and Kourtney Roberson and Fabyon Harris had 11 apiece for Texas A&M.
The Auburn Tigers (9-23) wrap up the season losing their last 10 games and now have lost 11 straight in Nashville. Coach Tony Barbee has yet to win a tournament game in his first three trips. Frankie Sullivan scored a team-high 19 points, and Chris Denson added 15 points.
Turner showed no ill effects early from his broken finger that kept him out of the Aggies' regular-season finale. He hit three of his first four shots and had nine points by halftime. The senior guard said after the game his finger did hurt at times.
"It's my last year, I've got to play with it, no matter what," Turner said. "My teammates did a great job just telling me to stay composed and to fight through it. That's what I did; my teammates were the ones that kept me going."
The Aggies both outshot and outrebounded Auburn. They hit 44.9 percent (22 of 49) compared to 40 percent (20 of 50), and they had a 9-0 scoring edge off second-chance points while outrebounding Auburn 36-24.
Both teams started shooting the ball well, and Auburn hit three 3-pointers, the last by Noel Johnson for a 13-10 lead with 16:15 to go. Turner answered with a 3 and a jumper to put the Aggies ahead to stay with 15:14 left. That was the start of 15 straight points by Texas A&M, the last a layup by Young for the Aggies' biggest lead of the half at 24-10 with 11:28 remaining.
Auburn went nearly seven minutes without a bucket before Sullivan ended the drought with a jumper. The Aggies led by as much as 11 down the stretch, but the Tigers scored the last six points to pull within 34-27 at halftime, the last on a fast-break layup by Wallace.
The Tigers kept whittling away at Texas A&M's lead. When Denson stole the ball and scored on a layup, he finished off the three-point play at the line to tie it up at 47 with 11:16 to go. Harris put the Aggies back up 50-47 with a 3-pointer, the start of a 9-2 run capped by a jumper from Roberson to push the lead to 56-49 with 6:13 left.
Auburn couldn't get closer than four the rest of the way, the last when Denson made a three-point play with 33.9 seconds left. The Aggies finished off the win by hitting 11 of 12 at the free-throw line in the final 1:48.
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