BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Keyshawn Hall scored a dozen straight clutch points and led No. 20 Auburn with 26 but Oklahoma State made a tie-breaking layup with 8 seconds left in overtime to beat the Tigers 97-95 Wednesday in an exhibition at Boutwell Auditorium.
“Very competitive game,” Auburn coach Steven Pearl said. “Defensively, we just aren’t where we need to be. You can’t overreact to one result. We play the game to win the game. I’m disappointed that we weren’t able to beat a good but short-handed Oklahoma State team.”
Hall scored Auburn’s last seven points in regulation and its first five in overtime, tying the score three times in the final two minutes.
“He put us on his back late and did a really good job,” Pearl said. “Every time we dealt with adversity, we didn’t panic and we ended up climbing back into the game.”
After OSU scored the first five points of overtime, Hall made a 3-point play and hit a pair of free throws before Kevin Overton’s drove through the lane and banked in a game-tying shot with 51 seconds left.
Anthony Roy’s fifth 3-pointer, from well beyond the top of the key, gave Oklahoma State a 3-point lead with 29 seconds to go.
Tahaad Pettiford answered for Auburn with a game-tying 3-pointer with 18 second left but the Cowboys scored the game-winner 10 seconds later on Jaylen Curry’s layup to lead 97-95.
After a timeout, Auburn inbounded with 2.8 seconds to play but Elyjah Freeman’s attempt at forcing a second OT was off target.
Hall made 7 of 14 field goals and 10 of 14 free throws to total a team-high 26 points, along with eight rebounds. Pettiford scored 17 points, Freeman added 16 and Overton scored 15. Freshman Sebastian Williams-Adams grabbed a team-high nine rebounds and scored six points.
Roy and Isaiah Coleman each scored a game-high 28 points for Oklahoma State while combining for 20 rebounds.
“We talked about in the scouting report, their guards were the one group that could beat us and we as coaches did a really bad job of taking the ball out of their hands,” Pearl said. “That’s a hundred percent on me. They were really quick and they were able to get downhill.”
Trailing 43-42 at halftime, the Tigers endured a cold spell early in the second half while Oklahoma State built an eight-point lead.
Auburn made a run down the stretch behind 3-pointers from Kaden Magwood and Freeman, trimming OSU’s lead to one point.
After the Cowboys went back up by five, Auburn rallied again on the strength of Overton’s steal and pair of free throws and Hall’s game-tying putback, evening the score at 80-80 with 1:40 to play.
Oklahoma State built a double-digit lead in the first half before Auburn answered, briefly leading before eventually trailing by one point at intermission.
Auburn will play one more exhibition game Oct. 30 in Atlanta vs. Memphis before officially tipping off the Steven Pearl era Nov. 3 at Neville Arena vs. Bethune-Cookman.
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on X: @jeff_shearer