NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The LSU Tigers couldn’t take advantage of the double bye for the quarterfinals and fell to 13th-seed Auburn, in overtime, 73-70, Friday afternoon at the Southeastern Conference Tournament at the Bridgestone Arena.
Auburn tied the game and forced the overtime on a three-pointer by KT Harrell in the final second of regulation as the Auburn Tigers won for the third consecutive day in the tournament to advance to a Saturday noon semifinal game with Kentucky.
LSU is now 22-10 overall and must wait now for the Selection Sunday show to see if they will make the NCAA field of 68. The Tigers are trying to make the tournament for the first time since 2009. LSU finished the regular season in a four-way tie for third at 11-7.
The loss overshadowed a strong 24-point effort by Keith Hornsby who made 8-of-15 field goals, including three treys and all five free throws for LSU to finish with 24 points. Jarell Martin had 18 points and 16 rebounds in the contest, while Jalyn Patterson hit 13 three-pointers.
Harrell led Auburn with 29 points including the game-tying three in regulation. Malcolm Canada had 14 points, making 6-of-10 field goals.
The game was chippy from the start and featured two flagrant fouls on Auburn with one ejection and a total of 53 fouls and 80 free throws.
For LSU in some ways that proved to be not a good thing as the Tigers were just 25-of-44 from the line (56.8%), while Auburn was 24-of-36. Harrell was 15-of-18 for Auburn at the line and while Hornsby and Patterson were a combined 9-of-9 at the stripe, Martin (8-of-18) and Tim Quarterman (6-13) had uncharacteristic games at the line.
It is the first time dating back to 1966-67 that LSU has lost a game when attempting at least 44 free throws.
LSU never led by more than nine points with six minutes to go in the first half and had an eight-point lead, 61-53, with 2:45 to go in regulation after Hornsby made three consecutive free throws after being fouled on a three-point attempt.
Harrell then went to work, hitting a three and then after one LSU free throw, Harrell got two-of-three free throws to cut the LSU lead to 62-58 with 1:52 to play. LSU missed a layup and a second consecutive foul on a three pointer allowed Harrell to go to the line with the clock stopped to make three more free throws to make it 62-61 with 57 seconds to play in regulation.
After a missed shot by LSU went out of bounds to the Tigers with the ball no touching the rim, LSU took timeout with 27.9 on the game clock and six on the shot clock. LSU failed to get a shot up, giving Auburn the ball back with 21.9 to go. There was no immediate harm as Auburn missed a shot with 10 seconds left and Patterson made two free throws on the rebound and foul to put LSU up three, 64-61.
Auburn then came down and got the game-tying three with 0.7 to play forcing the overtime.
In the overtime, it was again Harrell sinking four free throws and then Canada with a layup to make it 70-64 Auburn with 2:36 to go. That lead would swell to seven as LSU went 1-of-2 at the line and Antoine Mason scored to make it 72-65 with 1:28 to play.
LSU tried to make a rally in the final 20 seconds, down 73-70, but Hornsby missed two extremely contested threes, LSU turned the ball over and LSU failed on a lengthy desperation three that was not counted as a shot in the statistics at the buzzer.
Hornsby posted his 15th-consecutive double figure game in the contest tying Tasmin Mitchell for the longest streak since the 2009-10 season.