So much for a winning streak.A 3-point barrage from Auburn senior guard Tay Waller coupled with LSU senior forward Tasmin Mitchell’s worst performance of the season helped Auburn (14-15, 5-9) topple LSU (10-18, 1-13), 74-59, Saturday at Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum.Junior guard Bo Spencer led LSU with 23 points, sophomore forward Storm Warren contributed 14 points and freshman forward Dennis Harris logged 10 points. Mitchell only scored six points and fouled out in the loss.Waller led with 26 points, including six treys. Senior guard DeWayne Reed scored 12 points and sophomore forward Brendan Knox contributed 10 points in the winning effort.”Auburn played well; they shot the ball well,” said LSU coach Trent Johnson in a news release. “Their perimeter players have experience, and they played well. We couldn’t guard them in the man or the zone.”Strong guard play helped Auburn shoot a torrid 51 percent from the field and 46.4 percent from beyond the arc. Waller was 6-of-10 from distance by himself.”When a team is going like that, there’s nothing you can really do about that,” Mitchell said in a news release. “It was real frustrating because I feel like I let my team down. I wish I would’ve been smarter. They just shot the ball real well. It was just their night. They’re not like a Kentucky team or nothing like that where you got to worry about really defending them, but you have to defend them. They were just on tonight.”Mitchell’s limited impact was another key cog in LSU’s dismal showing. His six points accounted for a season low, with his previous low coming twice with eight-point outputs against Indiana State and Alabama, respectively. It didn’t help that Mitchell fouled out with 9:12 left in the game.Mitchell was the main reason for LSU’s near success in the first meeting between these two teams. The Denham Springs native poured in 38 points, but LSU came up short, 84-80.”It was tough being out there without Tas,” Spencer said in a news release. “I just tried to step up to take up some of the slack. Me and him are the main scorers on the team. We missed his production out there.”Johnson agreed.”Obviously, he’s our best player, and he is one of the better players in this league,” Johnson said. “He should get a little more respect with his individual play.”Freshman guard Earnest Ross proved to be Mitchell’s kryptonite. The young Auburn guard harried and hassled Mitchell for most of the night.”That’s what he does best for us — defend and be a physical presence for us,” Auburn coach Jeff Lebo said in a news release. “He’s a physical body out there, and he’s strong. It was a good matchup for us tonight with him guarding Mitchell.”Spencer was LSU’s lone bright spot. His 23 points came on 8-of-14 shooting, including 3-of-7 from long range in 38 minutes of action.It was no help.Auburn staved off any runs LSU could muster. Auburn’s biggest lead came at 19 points with 17:20 left in the contest, but LSU fought back to get within nine points at 54-45 on a Spencer 3-pointer with 8:38 to play.LSU wouldn’t get any closer. Timely 3-pointers from Waller, Reed and Ross down the stretch ended any hopes of a two-game winning streak for LSU.”It’s a mystery to me why [Auburn] lost nine games,” Johnson said. 
 
 
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