Johni Broome’s 22 points and 12 rebounds weren’t enough to keep No. 22 Auburn from losing 76-64 in Wednesday’s rivalry game against Georgia on the road.

Broome scored the first seven points for the Tigers after the Bulldogs jumped to a 5-0 lead. K.D. Johnson hit a three with 15:20 left in the first half for the first points by a Tiger other than Broome. Auburn trailed by one point after Johnson briefly silenced the fans from his former school.

Georgia pushed its lead back out to 11 with a Kario Oquendo layup at the 10:08 mark. Qquendo finished the game with 17 points. Wendell Green tied the game with one of his two buckets with a little over six minutes in the first half.

Terry Roberts scored two of his 26 points to regain the lead. Allen Flanigan gave Auburn its only lead with 4:12 left in the half on a jumper off a rebound. Roberts struck again 14 seconds later with a layup. Georgia regained the lead on the bucket by Roberts and never trailed again.

Roberts finished the half with another driving bucket, and the Tigers went into the locker room down 37-30. During halftime, the officials deducted a point from UGA after ruling that the Bulldogs had improperly got a free throw because of an incorrect count of Auburn team fouls.

“Didn’t get off to a very good start, which you have to on the road in order to win, and they did, which gave them some confidence,” head coach Bruce Pearl said after the loss.

Auburn will host No. 13 Arkansas on Saturday at Neville Arena. Let’s get into some takeaways from the Tigers’ loss at Stegeman Coliseum.

— Broome shot 9-17 and 2-5 from three. Flanigan was 5-10 for 11 points. Other than Flanigan and Broome, the rest of the Tigers shot 10-52 from the field and 2-21 from three.

— Roberts and Oquendo combined for 43 points, and Auburn’s starting guards had 12 points. Green with five and Jasper with seven.

“Our guards have been having a hard time staying in front of people,” Pearl said on the guard matchup. “You can go under, build a wall a little bit, and maybe you do that against teams that struggle to shoot the ball and let them shoot behind. That could be something we go to. It’s nothing something that I’ve done before very often. But keeping guards in front of us has become an issue. And our bigs do a pretty good job of helping them. But getting the guards back in front and competing to stay in front is an issue.”

— Auburn (11-3, 1-1 SEC) got outscored 36 to 28 in the paint, mainly by the Bulldogs attacking the rim and scoring on layups or dunks.

“Layups. Just driving at us. Just driving at us,’ Pearl said. “We couldn’t stay in front. Wasn’t their post-up game, they didn’t score at all in the post-up, and that’s what they’re really good at; Bridges is really good at. Just drove us downhill.”

— Pearl expressed displeasure with Jaylin Williams going 1-9 and 1-5 from three for five points.

“We needed to win more one-on-one battles,” Pearl said. “Jaylin Williams needed to win his matchup. We can’t win if Jaylin Williams goes 1-for-9. We just can’t.”

Flanigan’s 11 points provided a bright spot for Auburn. Pearl appreciated his efforts.

“It was good to see Al,” Pearl said. “Al didn’t play great against Florida and really worked hard, all week long, just coming in and grinding and just having a really good attitude and doing the best he could — instead of just being frustrated.”