Strong finish

AUBURN | The Tigers have a habit of conceding double-digit leads at home.

Kareem Canty has a habit of hitting big shots.

Both trends continued Tuesday during Auburn's 78-71 win against the Mercer Bears. The Tigers' 11-point margin was cut to one with 1:53 remaining. Yet a defensive stop created an opportunity for Canty to once again play the hero's role and he came through, landing a contested three-point shot with 29 seconds remaining.

That was enough.

"I knew I was shooting that. The clock was getting low," Canty said. "We were going through a stretch where we weren't scoring against the zone. When I saw I had a space, I let it go."

The shot itself wasn't easy, a fall-away jumper from 21 feet with a Mercer defender crossing his face. Adding complexity to the task was Canty's right ankle, which was injured just after halftime when the point guard landed on an opponent's foot.

The Auburn bench watched anxiously as Canty writhed in pain. Forward Cinmeon Bowers began punching his fists together after checking with Canty, apparently believing the point guard wouldn't return.

Canty missed only one minute of game time, however, after a quick retreat to the locker room for a new application of ankle tape. He finished with 21 points including 15 in the second half.

"I'm sure it hurt, but it looked like he was out for the year -- not one minute," coach Bruce Pearl said with a hint of sarcasm. "He'll be really sore tomorrow. He made game-winning plays when he had to."

Pearl admonished his team after its weekend loss to Middle Tennessee State, insisting that Auburn needed bigger contributions from its peripheral offensive contributors. That was rectified Tuesday in a sense; guard TJ Dunans added 14 points to erase memories of a dismal performance against MTSU.

Dunans clearly lost confidence after a troublesome first half in Nashville and allowed that malaise to ruin his entire day. The junior scored 12 of his 14 points during the first half, which gave Auburn an important lift early.

"You're not always going to get off to a good start," Pearl said. "Sometimes our emotions get in the way."

The Tigers (5-2) led by 11 points with 15:35 to go, but began to struggle on the scoring end against Mercer's matchup zone. Unable to create straightforward opportunities with incisive passes to Bowers and fellow forward Tyler Harris, Auburn seemed at peace with heaving contested jumpers from long range.

That allowed the Bears (8-2) to gradually make up ground.

Anxiety hit a crescendo with 1:53 remaining when Mercer guard Jestin Lewis, who finished with a career-high 28 points, nailed a jump shot to cut Auburn's lead to just one point. Lewis missed a three-point shot with 57 seconds remaining, which prefaced Canty's difficult final basket.

That bumped Auburn's lead to four points and forced Mercer into panic mode. An alley-oop from Canty to Bowers ended the game with authority.

The Tigers resume play Saturday morning at No. 10 Xavier.