Recapping Auburn’s 68-80 Loss to LSU

Another one … Auburn drops their second straight home game and 4th loss in a row overall. Auburn (9-12, 3-6) fell to LSU (14-8, 7-2) 68-80 in a game in which top draft prospect Ben Simmons was 3 assists away from a triple-double.

Auburn fared much better than I was expecting tonight, especially in the first few minutes and the last few minutes. It took a little while for LSU to get going, but Ben Simmons started showing why he’s the top projected draft pick and one of the best players in college basketball. Simmons was 8-12 from the field with 17 points and 9 rebounds in the first half. Horace Spencer was able to contain him a little bit in the first half, but other than him, Simmons seemed to be getting whatever he wanted.

While points and rebounds were coming easy, Ben Simmons wasn’t able to get others involved quite as well as he has most of this year in the first half. He finished the half with only 2 assists. Auburn did a decent job of getting stops in the first half, but when they were able to force LSU to miss shots, the Tigers weren’t able to get things going on the offensive end. LSU shot 53% in the first half while Auburn only shot 35%. LSU finished at 57% from the field, 20% higher than Auburn who struggled again and only shot 37% on the night. Auburn won’t win many basketball games if they can’t shoot the ball well. The Tigers have a very weak inside game and rely on the outside shot, where once again the shot poorly, to the tune of just under 30%.

The bright spot for Auburn was the consistent play of Bryce Brown. Brown finished with 18 points after hitting 6 of his first 8 three point attempts. In order to try and close the gap towards the end, Brown went on to miss 5 more threes, but still finished 6-13 from deep. Brown also picked up 5 rebound and 2 assists in his 31 minutes of playing time. With T.J. Dunans still on the bench with a knee injury, Bryce Brown is Auburn’s best all around player in my opinion. Dunans was warming up prior to tonight’s game, but did not play so we’ll see if he comes back soon to challenge and compete with Brown as well.

Once again, Auburn went on a pretty awful stretch in the second half and was down by as many as 21 points at the 7:56 mark. By this point, a large amount of the already low attendance of fans had started to leave Auburn Arena. While fans headed for the exits, the team seemed to keep fighting. It was too little too late, but Cinmeon Bowers and Auburn really started playing hard in the final 8 minutes of the game. Bowers, despite finishing just 3-14 from the field, was able to get to the free throw line 16 times and made 8 of them for over half of his 15 points.

Second half Ben Simmons was much more human than first half Ben Simmons as he had just 4 points and 4 rebounds in the second half while racking up all 4 of his fouls. Bowers and Auburn seemed to attack Simmons more on offense and it worked quite well in getting him in foul trouble and getting Auburn to the line. The fewer points is mostly to the credit of Simmons obviously passing the ball much more frequently in the second half, but Auburn can at least say they played one decent half against the future number one pick. Ben Simmons is really good at basketball, so it was a little fun to see him have human moments down the stretch. Don’t get me wrong though, he’s still the biggest reason why LSU defeated Auburn tonight. Without him, no one else was really able to step up, and that helped Auburn keep it interesting.

Cinmeon Bowers started off bad for Auburn but was able to string together a decent game down the stretch while attacking the basket and getting to the free throw line. Bowers is definitely better on the floor than on the bench, but not by a big margin. Kareem Canty had another average game, and Auburn just can’t get it done if he has just average games. He’s been attacking the basket well, but is still shooting really poorly from deep. Tonight he was just 2-9 from beyond the arc. Tyler Harris had another bad game with just 9 points and 4 rebounds while also turning the ball over 4 times. Harris, Canty, and the team as a whole are really starting to show the fatigue of losing and it doesn’t help Auburn’s chances going forward.

Auburn fought hard in the end, but ultimately dropped another game in a season that seems to be slipping away. The Tigers have a few more winnable games on their schedule, but with the Tigers heading back out on the road for the next 2 games which probably won’t be wins. Auburn will most likely bring a 6 game losing streak back to Auburn on the 13th when they face an underperforming Vanderbilt team. Here’s to picking up a few more wins, but I wouldn’t expect much.