Bruce Pearl explains what worked, what went wrong in second half against Texas A&M

Auburn had a five-game winning streak snapped by Texas A&M on Wednesday night, and coach Bruce Pearl has worked to find out what went wrong, particularly in the second half against the Aggies.

Pearl hasn’t quite figured it out just yet.

“I’m not sure, really,” Pearl said in a postgame press conference. “Probably they got to the foul line a lot and then we just probably turned it over a little bit. May have forced it a little bit instead of not panicking, executing.”

But both teams came out of the game with the same number of free-throws; Auburn and Texas A&M each made 24 trips to the line.

Still, despite pulling within eight around the final TV timeout, Auburn wasn’t able to make a bigger run at the win. Texas A&M closed it out comfortably down the stretch. What went wrong? Auburn simply couldn’t put together enough positive possessions in a row.

“I thought the zone the second half kind of helped get us back in the game a little bit, but in the last four minutes we turned it over a couple times and fouled them too much,” Pearl said.

Texas A&M took away Wendell Green Jr.

One of Auburn’s big problems on Wednesday night was the neutralization of Wendell Green Jr. In looking at what went wrong, it’s hard to overlook Green’s relatively minor impact.

The Auburn star had 16 points in the game and was 4-of-10 from the floor.

“Man, it was tough,” Bruce Pearl said in his postgame press conference.

“They doubled it out of Wendell’s [Green Jr.] hands and they didn’t leave Wendell on the perimeter very much,” Pearl said. “Wendell is our best three-point shooter, so, therefore, it was really kind of reliant on some of the other guys. Zep [Jasper] made a couple.”

Auburn will be back in action on Saturday with a road trip at West Virginia. The game will tip off at noon ET on ESPN.