Auburn Rides Home Atmosphere to Knock off Undefeated LSU
By: Nicolas Rioja
As the old saying goes, defense wins championships. If their defense is any indication, the Auburn Tigers certainly looked like a championship caliber team tonight. Squaring off at home against undefeated LSU, the squads knew that this game between the class of the SEC would be a challenge. Though points were hard to come by, the Tigers won by grinding LSU down in a defensive struggle. Their stifling defense forced LSU into 29% from the field, only 21% from three, and 17 turnovers. LSU, however, has been playing really good defense this year as well and tonight was no exception, forcing Auburn into 21 turnovers. Auburn immediately established an 18-1 lead to start the game and the tone was set for the night, as a loud Auburn crowd and motivated team jumped on LSU and never relented. Jabari Smith and Walker Kessler led the way with 16 points apiece for Auburn, but Kessler was the true key to victory, completing the game with an amazing 11 blocks and 10 rebounds. Another key difference tonight was in how the teams fed off of each other. KD Johnson played like a man on a mission on defense, riling up the crowd with his tenacity and burts of positive emotion. His Auburn teammates responded, feeding off of that energy and the energy of the crowd to get stops. LSU played a decent game, but I didn’t sense that same hunger and fire, which may not be a big deal given that this is their first real challenge in a hostile road environment. Wendell Green Jr. gave a solid 15 and Allen Flanigan pitched in 10 more for Auburn. For LSU, Xavier Pinson led the way with 13 points and the big man duo of Tari Eason and Darius Days each had 11. Fortunately for both sides, the future looks very bright. Each team sits at 12-1 with plenty of winnable games left on the schedule and NCAA Tournament seeding to decide. LSU must respond quickly, with upcoming games against #18 Kentucky and #14 Tennessee. Auburn will go on the road to South Carolina before hosting Florida.
