Following Auburn’s 67-58 loss Thursday at Georgia, LSU women’s basketball coach Van Chancellor said he knew his team would be facing an angry opponent this weekend.It turns out Chancellor was right.After a slow start in the first half, Auburn took out some of their anger on LSU on Sunday and outscored LSU, 43-27, in the second half to secure a 66-55 win in the PMAC.”We wanted to make sure that [a loss] didn’t happen again,” said Auburn women’s basketball coach Nell Fortner. “We were a very hungry team.”LSU jumped out to a 28-23 halftime lead thanks to a strong defensive effort that forced 10 opening-half turnovers and held Auburn to just 33 percent shooting.But Auburn sophomore guard Alli Smalley came out of halftime firing and had three 3-pointers in the opening three minutes of the half to give Auburn a 32-30 lead.Smalley finished with a game-high 21 points, including 5-of-5 shooting from the 3-point line.”She made two 3-balls that were beyond the NBA line,” Chancellor said. “That just ignited them.”LSU had opportunities to cut into Auburn’s lead but missed 11 free throws in the second half and shot just 9-of-22 for the game from the charity stripe.Chancellor said he doesn’t have an answer for LSU’s free throw struggles.”That was really amazing,” Chancellor said. “We shot them good today at shoot-around … I think we play on the road and we don’t have our friends and family here and we’re relaxing a little bit.”Auburn took advantage of LSU’s missed opportunities with a dominant offensive attack.Auburn began the second half hitting 11 of its first 15 shots to help take a 48-38 lead.Auburn guard DeWanna Bonner recovered from a slow opening half and scored 11 second-half points, including several baskets down the stretch to push Auburn’s lead out of reach.But early on, LSU had success containing Auburn’s offense.LSU steered away from its usual man-to-man defense and played a loose zone defense early on against Auburn — the Southeastern Conference’s best offensive team, averaging 79.5 points per game.The defense was designed to keep the basketball away from Bonner, who came into Sunday’s game averaging 21 points and nearly nine rebounds per game.LSU had success on that end of the floor, limiting Auburn to 3-of-13 shooting through the first nine minutes of the game en route to taking an early 14-9 lead.But Auburn closed the gap and answered with a 9-0 run over four minutes capped by a 3-pointer by Smalley to take an 18-14 lead with eight minutes to play in the opening half.LSU responded with a 14-5 run of its own over the final eight minutes of the half to take a 28-23 halftime lead.LSU’s lone senior, forward Kristen Morris, helped spark the first half play for the Lady Tigers and scored eight points and pulled down four rebounds in the opening half to enable LSU to outscore   Auburn, 16-8, in the paint in the opening half.Morris led LSU in scoring with 14 points and seven rebounds while playing 32 minutes off the bench.The Lathrup Village, Mich., native has seen more minutes in LSU’s past three games after playing a lesser role earlier in the season.”I’m just being myself,” Morris said. “I’m bringing a lot of energy to the floor, and I’m just playing when my number is called.”
—Contact Casey Gisclair at [email protected]