#8 Auburn vs Lipscomb Game Preview and Open Thread

John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

Auburn looks to move to 12-0 in their final contest before SEC play begins!

Date: Sunday December 29th

Opponent: Lipscomb Bisons

Location: Auburn Arena

Time: 3PM

Network: SEC Network, Auburn Radio Network

Auburn is one of 3 teams in America left that are undefeated. They’ll look to enter SEC play 12-0 as they host Lipscomb out of the Atlantic Sun Conference this afternoon in Auburn Arena.

Get to Know Lipscomb

Lipscomb was up for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament last season but losing for a 2nd time to Liberty (another current unbeaten team) in their home gym was their undoing as the Bisons settled for a spot in the NIT. Lipscomb would make it all the way to the NIT Championship game before losing to Texas. But Head Coach Casey Alexander left for Belmont and Garrison Matthews was off to the NBA and this year’s Lipscomb team has struggled so far this year starting the year 5-7.

Leading Scorers

Freshman Guard (#00) KJ Johnson - 15.2 PPG

Sophomore Center (#23) Ahsan Asadullah 14.7 PPG, 9.7 RPG

Senior Guard (#2) Andrew Fleming - 9.7 PPG

Senior Guard (#3) Michael Buckland - 9.7 PPG

Keys For Auburn

Auburn’s offense has struggled throughout non-conference play and tonight is the last chance to work on it before heading to Starkville on Saturday to begin SEC play. That hasn’t slowed J’Von McCormick down, especially over the last 3 games. McCormick has averaged 17.3 points per game in those 3 contests while averaging just 8.5 PPG over Auburn’s first 8 games. He’s also averaging just over 6 assists a game and has nearly a 3-1 assist to turnover ratio, pretty solid for a starting Point Guard.

Austin Wiley is putting a terrific senior season together as he, like McCormick, is averaging 10.9 PPG so far this year. He’s coming off a career high 15 rebound performance against Lehigh last Saturday, and is just shy of averaging a double-double with 9.4 rebounds a game. Look for Wiley to continue to get the ball in the paint as his role in Auburn’s offense continues to grow.

Prediction

It will not surprise me if Auburn takes a little bit to get going after a week off for Christmas. Still, Auburn has too much firepower for Lipscomb and they should be able to take care of business today.

Auburn 81 Lipscomb 56

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