The Tigers led for all but around 10 seconds of the game. They had no business doing what they did. They did it anyway.
TJ Lang having two fouls, Kareem Canty with one, and Cinmeon Bowers with a Technical before four minutes have even passed in the game is never a good thing. However, at the first media timeout, the Tigers led 12-6 over the Blazers. That's a good microcosm of the game as a whole: fouls were a plenty, yet so was great play.
Auburn started hot, dropping three three-point shots, but the refs were using some very liberal interpretations of new rules and Auburn ended up with those two key Tigers needing to be careful before much time had run off the clock.