Feb. 1, 2009
BATON ROUGE, La. - Auburn exploded for 43 second-half points on 63 percent shooting to come from behind and pick up its first win over LSU (11-8, 5-2 SEC) in Baton Rouge, La., since Feb. 4, 2001 with a 66-55 victory. The win was the 21st of the season for the No. 5 Tigers (21-1, 6-1 SEC) and the first since Auburn picked up its first loss of the season Thursday at Georgia.
Down five points at the half, sophomore guard Alli Smalley drilled three straight 3-pointers to open the second half and give Auburn a lead it would not give up.
"Alli came out and hit those shots for us and that gave us a lot of confidence in the second half," said Auburn head coach Nell Fortner. "She came out with the hot hand and for whatever reason, when Alli does that the rest of the team feeds off of it and they did that today."
Smalley went on to lead the Tigers with 21 points, tying a career-high with five 3-pointers in the game.
DeWanna Bonner followed with 18 points and nine rebounds while Whitney Boddie did it all as tallied 14 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. Boddie hit a big milestone in her Auburn career barely more than a minute into the game as she fed an assist to Trevesha Jackson, giving her 500 assists on her career.
The win was the first over LSU for Nell Fortner and her first win ever over LSU head coach Van Chancellor, who coached in the WNBA when Fortner was with the Indiana Fever.
"It is real big, anytime you can get a road win in SEC play, it is huge because they are so hard to come by," said Fortner. "LSU played some terrific defense, they are tough and it is hard to score against them."
While praising the Lady Tigers' defense, Fortner was also quick to applaud the defense of her own team.
"We just hung tough today. We had some big defensive stops and I thought our man-to-man defense in the second half was key," said Fortner. "LSU was shredding us in the first half, but we buckled down and came back strong in the second half."
Auburn struggled from the field in the first half, shooting 33.3 percent from the field. Bonner led the Tigers in scoring in the opening period with seven points and six rebounds. LSU's Kristen Morris came off the bench to lead the Lady Tigers with eight points while pulling down four boards.
The teams went back and forth in the opening half with five ties and six lead changes. LSU built a five-point lead at 14-9, but Auburn responded with a 9-0 run to take a four-point lead with 7:58 left to play. Boddie led the charge in the run with Smalley knocking down a three to give AU its largest lead of the half.
An 8-1 LSU gave the Bayou Bengals the lead at 24-19, an advantage it would not give up for the rest of the half, taking a 28-23 advantage into the locker room. The 23 points for the Tigers was its lowest first-half total of the season.
A 9-2 run to open the second half, made up entirely of Smalley 3-pointers, sparked the Auburn offense back to life as the Tigers rallied back for the win over the Lady Tigers. LSU came back and twice tied the game in the second half, but 14-4 Tiger run put the Bayou Bengals in a hole they could not recover from.
"The ball felt good coming off my hand today and I had a lot of confidence," said Smalley. "I had already hit one in the first half, so I knew my shot was falling. I got some good looks in the second half and just knocked it down."
Fifteen of Smalley's points came in the second half, along with 10 from Boddie and nine from Bonner.
Morris led LSU with 14 points, four steals and seven rebounds in the game while Allison Hightower tallied 10.
For the game, Auburn shot 49 percent from the field, hitting 25-of-51 attempts. The Tigers were also 5-of-6 from 3-point range and 11-of-16 from the charity stripe for 68.8 percent. AU and LSU tied in rebounds with 36 each, but LSU was able to win the turnover battle by forcing 17 Auburn turnovers, compared to 12 of its own.
LSU shot 36.7 percent (22-of-60) from the field and connected on only 2-of-11 three-point attempts. The Lady Tigers also struggled at the free-throw line, hitting only 9-of-22 attempts for 40.9 percent.
Auburn returns to action at 6 p.m., Thursday as the Tigers return to Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum for a meeting with Ole Miss.