Five players scored in double figures Saturday as No. 12 Auburn got past Mississippi State 73-66 to earn a spot in the championship game of the Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville, Tenn.
The fourth-seeded Tigers (26-7) will play sixth-seeded Florida for the SEC tournament title Sunday. The ninth-seeded Bulldogs (21-13) will wait for a possible at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament when the 68-team field is unveiled Sunday.
Chad Baker-Mazara scored 14 points to lead Auburn, while Jaylin Williams and Denver Jones each added 13. Johni Broome and reserve Tre Donaldson tallied 10 points apiece. The Tigers converted 50 percent of their field goal attempts in each half and made 17 of 22 foul shots.
Freshman guard Josh Hubbard scored a game-high 20 points for Mississippi State but hit only 6 of 17 field goal tries. D.J. Jeffries added 12 and Tolu Smith chipped in 10 points with a game-high 10 rebounds.
The Bulldogs earned a 37-29 rebounding advantage, raking in 17 offensive rebounds, but made only 41.1 percent of their field goal attempts. They also shot poorly at the foul line, converting just 17 of 27.
Just like it did on Friday, when it blasted top-seeded and No. 5-ranked Tennessee 73-56 in the first of three quarterfinal upsets, Mississippi State got off to a fast start. It led 9-2 less than four minutes into the game after Dashawn Davis canned a mid-range jumper.
The margin reached 12-4 just under six minutes into the game before Auburn finally found some traction. When Baker-Mazara drilled a baseline jumper at the 8:44 mark, the Tigers owned their first lead at 20-19.
From there, the teams swapped the lead for the remainder of the first half. The last say went to Auburn as Williams converted a layup with two seconds left, allowing it to knot the score at 31-31 at intermission.
The Bulldogs made just 40.7 percent of their first-half shots and turned it over 10 times but dominated the glass 22-10.
–Field Level Media
