Auburn traveled to Baton Rouge to take on No. 13 LSU, walking away with a 71-66 loss on Thursday night to bring its SEC record to 5-8 and overall record to 16-10.
Graduate senior Honesty Scott-Grayson hit another career milestone in the game as she reached 1,500 points for her Auburn career.
Scott-Grayson once again led the pack with 28 points and hit a career-best five 3-pointers along with four rebounds and three steals. Scott-Grayson was followed by graduate senior JaMya Mingo-Young with 16 points and six rebounds.
Defensively, Auburn forced 23 LSU turnovers with 10 steals led by Scott-Grayson and senior Taylen Collins with three apiece.
“Our team prepared for this,” said Auburn head coach Johnnie Harris. "We’ve been in these situations. This team is getting better and better. We played a really good team, I can’t take anything away from LSU. And when we got punched, we punched back. We forced them into 23 (turnovers). We have to capitalize off that. We got better on the offensive end, but we’ve got to continue to push and work."
LSU dominated under the basket tonight on both ends of the court. On the offensive side, the home team more than doubled Auburn’s points in the paint with 40 points in the paint alone, compared to Auburn’s 16.
The home team also outrebounded Auburn with a total of 42 boards for the night, compared to Auburn’s 28.
LSU opened up the scoring for the evening at the free-throw line. Collins, freshman Savannah Scott, and sophomore Kaitlyn Duhon opened up scoring for Auburn to take the early lead. However, the lead did not last long as LSU went on a 10-0 run. The rest of the quarter included many lead changes resulting in LSU hitting a 3-point jumper to take the lead at the end of the first.
Auburn was able to take back the lead with Scott-Grayson’s fourth 3-pointer of the night. Again, the lead was short-lived as LSU went on a 12-0 run, ending the half with a 40-30 lead.
Not backing down, Auburn went on a 10-0 run to put it just two points away from the home team in the third quarter. The trend continued as LSU pulled away once again, up by nine at the end of the quarter.
Scott-Grayson started off the final quarter with her fifth 3-point jumper of the night followed by a bucket from sophomore Sydney Shaw to put Auburn within four. Both teams then went on a scoring drought lasting about two and a half minutes. The drought was ended by Auburn’s Mingo-Young with back-to-back baskets, putting Auburn down by three with two minutes remaining.
Auburn had an opportunity to get even closer, but two missed free throws followed by another LSU bucket sealed the fate for the visitors.
“I told our team that if you come back and prepare for the next three games like you prepared for this one, we’ll have a chance,” Harris said.
Next up, Auburn will host Texas A&M on Sunday, Feb. 25. Tipoff is set for 2 pm CST and will be broadcast on SEC Network+.
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Alexa Gardner is a junior at Auburn, majoring in exercise science. From Birmingham, Alabama, she started with The Plainsman in fall 2022.
Twitter: @alexagardner_
