Auburn’s walk-ons spend much of the game on the bench. Few players on this roster have a better read on what’s going on on the sidelines during games and Jalen Harper knew exactly how crucial losing Chad Baker-Mazara would be.

“It’s no secret, we need No. 10 out there,” Harper said after Auburn’s stunning 78-76 upset loss to Yale. “It’s just the play. He got ejected. We can’t have that. We’re better than that.”

To Auburn’s players, that call changed the course of the game. It was the foundation of a stunningly quick March Madness exit.

Baker-Mazara was called for a Flagrant 2 foul with 16:59 left in the first half of Auburn’s loss. Auburn led 12-5 at that point and started Friday’s opener of the NCAA Tournament in Spokane, Washington, with momentum. It seemed as if Auburn was about to run away past Yale and end the game quickly.

It didn’t happen that way.

After center Johni Broome hit a layup to put Auburn up 12-5, Auburn ran back down the floor and Baker-Mazara elbowed Yale guard August Mahaney unnecessarily.

The call was controversial, tossing a player who scores more than 10 points per game out of Auburn’s lineup for the remaining 36 minutes of Auburn’s eventual loss.

Head coach Bruce Pearl agreed it was a flagrant foul, but didn’t think it warranted Flagrant 2 status. Pearl did agree that Baker-Mazara’s slash was intentional and excessive, which does fit the definition of a Flagrant 2 foul.

He said Baker-Mazara retaliated to being hit by Mahoney previously.

“A really insane thing to do after we’ve been working the whole year,” Pearl yelled out toward the scorer’s table just after Baker-Mazara ran to the locker room.

“It was huge,” Pearl said after the game, a chance to cool off behind him. “Denver Jones had a really good offensive game, but we needed that other guard out there offensively. Denver was a little under the weather, he had to play through that and so he ended up playing more minutes under the weather. And Chris Moore to play more minutes and KD had to play more minutes. And so we just weren’t as deep or as fresh. I think they took a shot at Chad, they hit him and he retaliated. You can’t retaliate, but they hit him first.”

And it was certainly clear that Baker-Mazara’s play shifted the mood of the bench and the team as a whole. It shifted the whole momentum of the game as smiles and a loose Auburn team to start the game turned into confusion, shock and frustration.

Yale came back into the game after the call. It turned what may have been an Auburn blowout into an upset.

Auburn had several chances to put Yale away even after the call. Auburn led by 10 with just over seven minutes to play. The SEC Tournament winner couldn’t close out the Ivy League Tournament winner.

Here’s how Baker-Mazara’s teammates reacted in the locker room after the loss.

Forward Jaylin Williams: “Chad’s a big part to our team. Even just having another body out there just in general. Chad brings a lot of offense to the game, and he gets stops. (He) does all types of different things, as well. To have him out really hurt us a little bit.”

Forward Chaney Johnson: “As much as I want to say it didn’t, it definitely did. Because, I mean, Chad is a really important piece for us. He was coming off the bench, but he gives us a spark. He was that spark we needed, him and KD, so. It definitely gave us a little hit in the scoring department. But I still believe we could’ve got it done. We just got beat; just wasn’t the best team today.”

Center Dylan Cardwell: “It slowed the game down. We were up 8, so it slowed the game down and took him out of the game.”

Guard Carter Sobera: “We missed Chad out there. But we knew we had to keep going even missing Chad, which was a huge loss to us. Trying to win the game for him.”

Matt Cohen covers sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]