Auburn was unable to leave Baton Rouge with a win over SEC rival LSU Tigers today. The Auburn Tigers got utterly dominated after taking a quick lead to open the game as LSU recovered and never looked back. Auburn was only able to end the game leading in two statistical categories, that being blocks and free-throw percentage.
Auburn had three more blocks and was almost 20% better from the charity stripe despite having the same amount of attempts as LSU. Despite leading in blocks, the Auburn Tigers got outrebounded by eight boards, with all eight of them being on the defensive end, and tying on offensive rebounds.
Coach Bruce Pearl when asked about Auburn’s bigs said that “our big guys are young and are not physical enough,” which was evident in how dominant LSU was down low against those young Auburn bigs. Scoring wise Auburn only had two players crack double digits, with two of those, JT Thor and Allen Flanigan had 10 and 13 respectively.
The third player being Auburn’s leading scorer Sharife Cooper scoring 26 points, his fourth 25+ point game. Despite his scoring ability today, he was unable to match his season averages for assists, only managing to get two along with six turnovers. On the flip-side, LSU was able to have four out of their five starters get 15+ points today, with their leading bench scorer doubling Auburn’s highest points off the bench.
LSU star Cam Thomas was able to lead all players with 27 points, followed by big man Trendon Watford with 18. LSU was able to score 104 points, on only six assists, an absurd number that shows how much 1-on-1 ball that they utilized against Auburn today.
When asked about it Bruce noted how in the first half “they had 50 points on three assists, with that it means that they beat us one on one.” Despite Auburn’s best efforts, LSU was able to steamroll Auburn 104-80, a 24 point margin of victory. LSU was also able to shoot above 50% in each statistical category, ending with 53.4% from the field, 50% from three and 68.2% from the free throw line. All in all, the Auburn Tigers had an extremely disappointing game against SEC rival LSU, but will look to bounce back next Tuesday against the Florida Gators.
