AuburnFamilyNews.com: GAME RECAP: LSU 104, Auburn 80

NCAA Basketball: Auburn at Louisiana State — Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

GROSS.

Oh, heavens. I hope you had something better to do with your time today than watch what happened to Auburn down in Baton Rouge. I hope something gave you a more fulfilling sense of purpose than that matchup. In the College and Mag group chat, some of us put together Legos while watching, our attention fully off the TV. Others played with their children, others grilled with an eye on the game. All were worthwhile pursuits.

Auburn HC Bruce Pearl: "For the first time, I saw it tonight — didn't just have the edge... Guys weren't excited about their matchup. Who wants Cam Thomas? Who wants Trindon? Who wants Javonte?... There just wasn't any of that, and that's a problem. As a result, we got whooped."
— Justin Ferguson (@JFergusonAU) February 20, 2021

At the very least, you’re a sadist if you sat through all of Auburn’s 104-80 loss to LSU today. It was all Bayou Bengals, nothing blue and orange. Even the “good” things for Auburn had negative sides.

LSU hit 53% of its shots, went 11-22 from downtown, outrebounded Auburn by a bunch, and dominated the paint. When the other teams wins the battles on every point on the floor, you’re in for a long day. Sharife Cooper led Auburn in scoring with 26 points, but he only had 2 assists to go along with 6 turnovers. Meanwhile, Cam Thomas poured in 27 points for LSU, and he was just one of four players who scored at least 16 points.

Auburn actually started off pretty nicely, running out to a 5-0 lead and a 10-5 edge less than three minutes into the contest. Over the next three minutes, however, LSU went on a 13-0 run to take an 18-10 lead and never really looked back. At the under-12 timeout it was 26-14 LSU, and then Trendon Watford took over for the next stretch with three baskets in a minute of game time before Thomas’ three gave the home Tigers a 40-23 lead at the under-8 break. At the half, LSU led 50-34 and had shot 53% in the first half, a mark they’d keep up for the entire contest.

The second half was more a formality, with Auburn never cutting the lead to less than 15 points, which came at the 15:00 mark of the ballgame. After that, LSU increased the lead past 20 points and kept it there for the final 12:46 of the meeting. In the end, they dominated and won with the 104-80 final score. It was Auburn’s least fiery game of the season, and maybe the one where we saw the repercussions of playing for nothing in the postseason. Auburn will have three more games this season, with two coming at home and the finale happening against Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Up next it’s Florida this Tuesday night at 8 pm CST.

FINAL STATS