Auburn goes into its Saturday matchup with LSU after a week of last-minute schedule disruptions. A cancelation for Tuesday’s game against Mississippi State shifted focus to the season’s first game against the Tigers from Baton Rouge.
Harsh winter weather conditions across the nation prevented the Bulldogs from traveling to Auburn safely and the game has been indefinitely delayed.
“If we had known we had a sort of a bye week, we would have approached it a little differently,” said head coach Bruce Pearl. “We spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday preparing for Mississippi State and then came to find out we’ll be playing LSU…so then we have to get the team ready for LSU.”
Coming off a close loss to Kentucky in Rupp Arena, Auburn heads to Baton Rouge with an 11-11 record on the season, struggling through SEC play at 5-8. Having won only one of their last five contests, Auburn looks to find success in their first meet-up of the season with LSU.
LSU has fared better in the SEC, with an 8-4 conference record and holding only two home losses for the entire season. They are scoring a current average of 82 points per game, while Auburn stands just below with an average 78.8 per game.
Shutting down a challenging LSU offense lead by Javonte Smart, Trendon Watford, Darius Days and Cameron Thomas will be the main priority for the Auburn defense.
“LSU is a terrific offensive team,” said Pearl. “They’re sixth in the country in offensive efficiency, third in the league in scoring, second in free throw percentage. Cam Thomas is the fourth leading scorer in the country, first in the SEC.”
In addition to the challenges LSU presents on offense, Auburn will be facing a defensive strategy they have yet to encounter but will be seeing more of in the near future.
“Defensively, they’re a little unique," Pearl said. "They run a switching man-to-man defense, something that we haven’t seen all year. It’s something that we’ll actually see a lot in the next couple of games. Both LSU and Florida will switch a lot.”
Although the Tigers have decided to forgo any postseason competition, Pearl says the goal going forward is to end the season with a record that would have gotten them there under normal circumstances.
“We would be out of the tournament right now if the tournament was being played… 'Could we get ourselves to the point where the math would’ve been good enough for us to go had we been eligible or made ourselves eligible?' That’ll be a tall one,” Peal said. “But it’s certainly a goal worthy of competing for.”
In addition to looking toward the remainder of their games, an update was also given on freshman guard Justin Powell’s status moving forward.
“With just a few weeks left in the season, he’s still not back, but he’s doing better, …He’s been in the weight room a couple of times a week and he’s getting shots now, but he hasn’t been cleared to come back to practice,” Pearl said.
To see both Tigers in action, the game tips off at 3:00 p.m. CST, airing on ESPN.
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Callie Stanford is from Springville, Alabama and is currently a sophomore at Auburn. She has been with The Plainsman since January 2021.
Twitter: @Stanford1Callie
