"Have Mercer!"

That would be my headline if I were on a sports copy desk tonight. (On a related note, this is probably why I don't work on the sports copy desk.) I'm sure Uncle Jesse from Full House would appreciate it.

An ugly performance by the Auburn men's basketball team tonight. It's one thing to lose to a small conference school like Mercer because of a ridiculously hot shooting night by either a player or the whole team, but to be, as Jeff Lebo described, "annihilated" on the boards by a 46-21 margin is embarrassing.

The Bears (3-0) weren't bigger than the Tigers (1-1), with a frontcourt that went 6-6, 6-7 and 6-8. But they were relentless on the glass. They had a 22-9 advantage at halftime that only increased in the second half.

"Rebounding a lot of the time is a mentality, and no so much a skill," Lebo said. "You have to have a nose for the ball, and with contact be able to come down with it, which we didn't do."

Think Auburn will have some rebounding drills on tap before Saturday's game against George Washington? That game's Saturday at 2 p.m. EST, by the way.

Some other thoughts:

• Auburn looked better at the free throw line, making 71 percent of its foul shots in the first half. But the Tigers collapsed at the end, missing six free throws in the final 7 minutes, two coming at the front end of a 1-and-1. It sounds like this is a yearly problem for this team. They finished 16-for-28 in the game.

• Mercer guard James Florence, who scored 16 of his 25 points in the first half, is a terrific player. I thought Auburn guard DeWayne Reed did a good job of locking him up in the second half, when Florence had five of his eight turnovers.

• If my count was correct, Auburn missed two dunks (one by Reed, one on an alley oop by Lucas Hargrove) and a layup by Korvotney Barber. Those are the ones you think about after a loss like this.

• Good to see freshman guard Frankie Sullivan get some action after missing the opener with a sprained ankle. He looked confident, hoisting up a 3 on his first look and making it. He was 2-for-9 shooting (and just 2-for-8 from 3-point range), but I think he'll be a pretty big factor on this team once he gets some more experience.

• From the silver lining department: Auburn had only 7 turnovers.

• The foul call against Quantez Robertson in the final seconds appeared to be correct, but the official underneath the hoop didn't look like he had a clue. He was timid with an original out of bounds call that gave the ball to Auburn, then looked helpless before another official raced in to change it to a charge. Not a great game for the officials, who called everything (50 foul calls, two foul outs for Mercer) and made a bad call on Reed's missed dunk that eventually earned Bears coach Bob Hoffman a first-half technical.

Women's basketball: Auburn 71, Georgia Southern 45

Another impressive win by the No. 20-ranked Tigers (3-0), who got 18 points from Alli Smalley, 11 from DeWanna Bonner and 10 from Chantel Hilliard in Statesboro, Ga.

Kudos to senior guard Sherrell Hobbs, who scored her 1,000th career point, the 24th Auburn women's player to do so.

Auburn hosts No. 17 Ohio State at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum on Sunday at 3 p.m. EST.