AUBURN, Ala. — The black cloud that seems to be following the LSU men’s basketball team around traveled with the Tigers to Auburn on Saturday as the Auburn Tigers used a big first half to score an 85-65 victory over LSU.
LSU falls to 9-4 and 0-3 in the Southeastern Conference going into a Wednesday night 7 p.m. non-conference game at the Maravich Assembly Center against Centenary. Auburn wins for the first time in three league games and is 11-5 overall.
The visitors appeared not to be in the same building in the first 20 minutes as Auburn quickly built a seven point advantage and got the lead to double figures for the first time at the 8:24 mark on a three-pointer by Adam Harrington, 27-17.
The Tigers had no answers and the lead advanced to 23 points, 49-26, in the final minute on a three-pointer and then a lay up by Reggie Sharp. Auburn went to the dressing room with a 49-29 advantage.
Auburn shot 63.3 percent in the opening half, 19-of-30, including 6-of-8 three-pointers. Early in the game, Auburn had a 16-2 advantage in the rebounding and had a 21-12 advantage after 20 minutes.
But like the Vanderbilt game when the Tigers got down 20 on Wednesday, the cloud lifted long enough for LSU to make a run.
Down 58-37, football tight end Robert Royal got the first six points of his LSU basketball career on two free throws to start a
24-9 run which would cut the Auburn lead to just six, 67-61, with 5:39 to play. LSU had the ball and a chance to cut it down further, but back-to-back blocks by Kyle Davis, who had seven in the game, took the spark out of the Tigers and Auburn was able to move the lead out, getting 11 points at the free throw line and three lay-ups to get the margin back out to the final 16 point margin.
Ronald Dupree, the leading scorer in the Southeastern Conference led LSU with 16 points, while Brian Beshara had 15 points and Collis Temple 12. Adam Harrington paced Auburn with 19, with Abdou Diame getting 13, Scott Pohlman 12 and Marquis Daniels with 10. Jamison Brewer won the battle of points guards for Auburn with 10 assists and no turnovers in 31 minutes. Torris Bright had six points, three assists and two turnovers in 36 minutes.