Auburn suffers bad break

FAYETTEVILLE — Auburn is a lock to break its 15-year NCAA Tournament drought — the longest current streak in the SEC — and a league championship is within reach as the Tigers lead by two games with four remaining.

But the challenge for Coach Bruce Pearl’s Tigers to close out their first SEC regular-season title since 1999 and do damage in the postseason has gotten harder after the loss of center Anfernee McLemore.

The Tigers already were short on their front line before the 6-7 McLemore went down with 1:23 left in the first half of Saturday’s 84-75 loss at South Carolina with a dislocated ankle, fractured tibia and torn ligaments.

“There’s no breaking point,” Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl said. “We have a resilient, tenacious, gritty bunch of guys who have been trusting and reliant on each other. We have a terrific team.”

McLemore had 73 blocked shots, 13 more than any player in the conference at the time of his injury, and ranked 12th in the country with 2.73 per game. He averaged 7.4 points and 5.3 rebounds per game.

Pearl said he would give more minutes at center to Horace Spencer and Chuma Okeke, and rotate small forward Desean Murray in at power forward along with Malik Dunbar to fill McLemore’s 19 minutes per game.

The 6-3 Murray is averaging 10.7 points and a team-high 7.0 rebounds, while the 6-8 freshman Okeke is averaging 7.6 points and 5.4 rebounds.

The Tigers, who host Alabama on Wednesday night, now have eight scholarship players available.