Auburn tries to choke away game, New Mexico State chokes harder

The Auburn Tigers did everything they could to give away their First Round NCAA Tournament game against New Mexico State, but the Aggies wouldn’t take it.

With seven minutes left in the second half of the First Round matchup in the 2019 NCAA Tournament, Bruce Pearl’s Auburn Tigers seemed to be easily cruising into the next round as they took on the New Mexico State Aggies. With a Danjel Purifoy lay-up, the Tigers took a 67-54 lead and it all seemed to be going their way. Things were about to go awry, though.

To the credit of New Mexico State, they turned up the heat on defense and started chipping away at the Auburn lead at that point, scoring seven-straight points to cut the Tigers advantage to six points. After Jared Harper nailed a 3-point shot, though, the two teams traded buckets until Auburn was up 73-66 with less than a minute in the game. Then the Tigers started to try and do everything in their power to give the Aggies the game.

An A.J. Harris lay-up for New Mexico State cut the lead to just five points, then Harper turned the ball over out of a timeout and Auburn fouled Johnny McCants, who hit one free throw for the Aggies. Chuma Okeke then coughed up the rock, leading to a Trevelin Queen 3-pointer that put NMSU only down one point.

Just as it seemed as if the Tigers were giving the way, though, the Aggies showed that they were more than capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory themselves.

Down three points after two Okeke free throws, the Aggies drew a foul, but missed one of the freebies from the charity stripe, to give Auburn a two-point lead before foul shots pushed it to four points. Then JoJo Zamora hit a wild 3-point attempt to bring the Aggies within one and the Tigers opened the door again for New Mexico State as Auburn’s Samir Doughty missed the front end of two free throws.

Following a make by Doughty on his second attempt, the Aggies rushed down the floor to try and get a good look when, for whatever reason, they passed up a wide-open lay-up to try for the win with a 3. Terrell Brown heaved up a bad looking attempt — but incredibly and unbelievably got fouled on the shot. Three attempts at the charity stripe to win the game.

The back-and-forth choke job, despite one second remaining on the clock, still wasn’t done, though. Brown missed the first attempt, but could still tie it up after making the second. However, he missed the third free throw, but Auburn then fumbled the rebound out of bounds with 1.1 seconds left on the clock, giving New Mexico State one last shot to win it down by a single point.

On the inbounds play, the Aggies looked to Trevelin Queen in the corner for a 3-pointer with a good look, but he delivered the final choke of the afternoon as he missed everything with his attempt.

This First Round matchup was about as nutty as they come and certainly the maddest part of March that we’ve seen to this point. However, let’s hope the rest of the madness includes better basketball than what Auburn and New Mexico State had to offer.