Auburn senior forward KeShawn Murphy thought he had made the game winner against Texas A&M.
With 0.6 seconds left on the clock and the Tigers trailing 90-88, Murphy received an inbounds pass along the right sideline. He turned and fired a 3-pointer from 35 feet that splashed through the net and appeared to give Auburn the win.
Murphy’s teammates mobbed him, the Aggies players stared in disbelief, and just about every fan in Neville Arena in Auburn, Ala., thought the shot was good.
Not the officials, though.
As celebrations ensued, the referees took almost three minutes to review the play on courtside monitors before ruling that Murphy did not release the ball before time had expired. The officials waved off the basket and A&M escaped with a 90-88 victory.
WILD ENDING 🤯
This supposed buzzer-beater from Auburn was overturned after review to give Texas A&M the win. pic.twitter.com/oxjZEHlWGH
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) January 7, 2026
After the officials called off the shot, they quickly exited the arena, walking past an incensed Auburn coach Steven Pearl while the home crowd showered them with invectives and hurled objects onto the court and at the referees.
“There was zero communication,” Pearl told reporters postgame. “They didn’t say a word. They just said it was no good and ran off the floor. I probably wouldn’t want to talk to me in that moment anyway, so I get why they’d run away from me.”
Pearl, like nearly every fan in the arena, believed the Tigers had just earned their 10th win of the season and first SEC victory. On the SEC Network broadcast of the game, initial replays suggested that Murphy had gotten the shot off in time, but a second angle appeared to confirm the referees’ call of the play.
“From the angles that I saw, it looked like it was off his fingers,” Pearl said. “But I don’t have all the angles they have. So I’m just looking at an iPad, and it looks like on the clock it says 0.2. On the floor, I’m like, ‘Oh s—, we just won the game.’
“The crowd sees it on the big JumboTron, they think that it’s good, and everyone thinks that the game’s over. I’m just trying to sit there like, ‘Hold on, you just never know.’ And sure enough, they made a decision that it was on his fingertips. It’s devastating.”
Auburn students threw objects onto the floor as the referees left pic.twitter.com/bTdvKi6py3
— Peter Rauterkus (@peter_rauterkus) January 7, 2026
During their flight back to College Station Tuesday night, the Aggies had some fun at Auburn’s expense during their flight back to College Station. In a video posted early Wednesday morning on the team’s X account, A&M head coach Bucky McMillan stood in the aisle of the team plane and recorded a message inviting fans to the Aggies’ home game Saturday afternoon against Oklahoma.
2:30 on Saturday – don’t be a millisecond late… 👀#GigEm | #PackReed pic.twitter.com/tuhy2zrFKG
— Texas A&M Basketball (@aggiembk) January 7, 2026
“We play Oklahoma, 2:30 (CT) on Saturday,” McMillan said. “We gotta have you there, we gotta pack Reed (Arena). 2:30, don’t be a millisecond late.
“If you’re a millisecond late, you know it don’t count.”