The home crowd at Auburn’s Neville Arena cheered Saturday night.
To kickoff, former Auburn and Oregon quarterback Bo Nix appeared on the jumbotron to warm applause from his and his father’s alma mater.
What about Bruce Pearl and No.
16 Auburn’s nine consecutive double-digit wins?
That was just the icing on the cake Saturday, as Auburn defeated LSU 93-78 and handed the Bayou Bengals their first conference loss, while the Auburn Tigers improved to 3-0 in conference play and 14-2 on the year.
Achieved good results
Once again, Auburn bounces back after tough shooting performance
Auburn went 5-for-22 from beyond the arc against Texas A&M on Tuesday — a 22% deep-shooting performance well below Auburn’s 34% average coming into the night.
Against the Aggies, Auburn had its worst three-point shooting effort since its loss at Appalachian State on Dec. 3, when Auburn was good from beyond the arc just 11% of the time. The next time out, Auburn was good from three 48% of the time in its win over Indiana.
Just like it did after their loss to App State, Auburn was quick to snap their shooting slump Saturday evening
In just one half of play against LSU, Auburn sank seven three pointers, which was two more than it tallied in the entire game against Texas A&M. Auburn did so on a 50% three-point effort in the first half as freshman Aden Holloway got things off to a red-hot start with a pair of makes in the first two and a half minutes.
Auburn finished the night with 10 makes from beyond the arc with Chad Baker-Mazara and Aden Holloway each hitting a trio of three pointers.
Baker-Mazara finished the night with a team-high 19 points.
Assist/Turnover ratio continues to favor Auburn
Coming into Saturday evening’s matchup, Auburn ranked No. 6 in the country in assist/turnover ratio with a ratio of 1.84 as the Tigers had tallied 281 assists to their 153 turnovers.
And against LSU, Auburn stayed par with the course as it forced LSU to commit 17 turnovers — nearly four more than LSU’s season average of 13.3 turnovers per game. Of LSU’s turnovers, all but one came as a result of an Auburn steal.
For just the third time this season, Auburn recorded double-digit steals, finishing with 16 on the night — a season high for the Tigers. Auburn’s leading pocket-picker was Baker-Mazara, who finished the game with six steals.
Auburn scored 26 points on turnovers against LSU.
Meanwhile, Auburn found continued success dishing the basketball as it finished the evening with 20 assists to LSU’s 12 assists.
Auburn stifles LSU’s leading scorer
Pearl gushed about LSU guard Jalen Cook during his press conference Thursday, even admitting to giving Cook a look when he entered the transfer portal the first time.
“Just knew what a great player he was,” Pearl said of Cook. “We had him evaluated as any guard in the portal.”
And coming into Saturday night’s game, Cook was backing it up after having just become eligible to play following the passage of new legislation allowing multi-time transfers to play without sitting out a year.
In his first five games, Cook averaged 16.
8 points per game, including a whopping 28 points against Vanderbilt.
Cook’s game against Auburn wasn’t as eventful, as he scored just seven points in the second half of Saturday’s game and saw little opposition offense.
It’s unclear whether Cook suffered any injuries in Saturday’s loss.
With Coach Cook on lockdown, LSU was forced to rely on fifth-year guards Trey Hannibal and Jordan Wright, who both finished with 18 points.
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