AUBURN, Ala. (AP) — Auburn head coach Jeff Lebo says his team just ran out of steam in the second half Saturday against a bigger and deeper LSU team.
“They wore us out in the second half,” Lebo said, after Auburn’s 77-64 loss to LSU. “Their size and the course of 40 minutes just hurt us in rebounding in the second half. We couldn’t match their men inside.”
Brandon Bass scored 22 points for LSU, including 16 in the second half, to lead the Tigers to the come from behind win. With the victory, LSU (17-8, 10-4 Southeastern Conference) tied Alabama for first place in the western division of the SEC. LSU Coach John Brady said his players knew Alabama had lost to Kentucky earlier Saturday.
“It was nice knowing Alabama had lost and we knew what we had to do. We played ourselves into position that if we take care of business we’ll win the SEC West,” Brady said.
Auburn was able to hold the lead for the first seven minutes of the second half, but Bass hit a 3-pointer with 13:05 to play to give LSU a 45-44 lead and the Tigers never trailed the rest of the game. LSU then went on a 17-2 run and extended its lead to 16 with 5:11 to play.
LSU dominated the smaller Auburn team under the basket. The Tigers outscored Auburn 24-4 in the paint in the second half and outrebounded Auburn 39-29 for the game.
Auburn had nobody who could match LSU’s 315-pound Glen Davis, who scored 17 points.
“You go against Glen Davis and he is 315 pounds. That wears your body out defensively, making everything else so difficult,” Lebo said.
Auburn outplayed LSU for much of the first half and led by as many as 12.
The leading scorer for Auburn was Toney Douglas with 19 points, while Nathan Watson had 12. All of Watson’s points came in the first half.
LSU got 13 points from Darrel Mitchell and 12 from Tack Minor.