Auburn women’s basketball upsets defending national champion LSU in Neville Arena
Auburn women’s basketball pulled off a stunner Sunday afternoon.
With reigning national champion LSU (16-2, 3-1 SEC) visiting the Plains, coach Johnnie Harris and the Tigers welcomed 7,720 spectators to Neville Arena, the largest crowd for a women’s basketball game in the venue’s history. Auburn (12-5, 1-3) gave its supporters a treat, dropping the Bayou Bengals 67-62 and earning its first SEC win of the season.
Fifth-year guard Honesty Scott-Grayson led the way with 21 points on 42.9% shooting. She was joined in double figures by JaMya Mingo-Young, who dropped 13. Mingo-Young also had a key defensive stop late, stripping the ball away from LSU star Angel Reese with 10 seconds remaining.
The home Tigers held a two-point advantage when Mingo-Young snatched the ball from Reese, who finished with 24 points and 11 rebounds. Scott-Grayson and Mingo-Young combined to hit three free throws in crunch time and Auburn held on for the historic win. Coach Kim Mulkey’s team had won 16 straight games.
Quick start for Auburn women’s basketball vs. LSU
Scott-Grayson sank three of her first five shots to help Auburn to an early eight-point lead at the end of the first quarter. Reese responded with seven points of her own, but the rest of LSU’s team combined for eight points on 2-for-7 shooting in the game’s opening frame.
The Tigers also notched four steals in the first quarter, leading to an extra seven points.
Nothing from beyond the arc and a battle on the boards
LSU only attempted two 3-pointers, one in the second quarter and one in the fourth. It missed them both. The visitors came in averaging more than 13 shots from beyond the arc per game, making them at a 33.3% rate.
A big advantage LSU has over a lot of teams is what it can do on the glass. The Bayou Bengals average 46.1 rebounds per game, and their opponents average 30.7. Auburn bucked that trend, only losing the rebounding battle by two and drawing even in offensive rebounds at 14 apiece.
No. 2 in the all-time record books
While the 7,720 spectators in attendance was a record for the team in Neville Arena, it wasn’t a record in the all-time books. The women’s basketball team saw 12,067 fans pack Beard-Eaves Coliseum to watch the Tigers take on coach Pat Summitt’s Tennessee Lady Vols in January 2009. Auburn won that one, 82-68, to break what was a 16-game losing streak to Tennessee at the time.
Prior to that, the previous record occurred when the Tigers had 7,150 supporters show up for a game in 1989. That matchup was also against Tennessee.
Up next
Auburn will go on the road to take on Vanderbilt on Thursday (6:30 p.m. CT, SEC Network+). The Commodores (16-2, 3-1) have won nine of their previous 10 games, with that one loss being a narrow defeat to Missouri on Sunday.
Angel Reese has ball stolen on game-deciding possession in No. 7 LSU’s upset loss
AUBURN, Ala. — Honesty Scott-Grayson scored 21 points, and Auburn upset No. 7 LSU 67-62 on Sunday.
Defending national champion LSU entered the game with the nation’s best scoring offense at 93.8 points and had won a nation’s best 16 straight contests.
Auburn (12-5, 1-3 Southeastern Conference) forced 15 turnovers and held LSU (16-2, 3-1) to a season-low in points in the home victory.
LSU star Angel Reese had the ball stolen from him on critical possession in the Tigers’ upset loss to Auburn on Sunday.ESPN
JaMya Mingo-Young stole the ball from LSU’s Angel Reese with 10.4 seconds remaining in regulation to seal the victory. She hit both free throws to put Auburn up by two possessions.
“We guarded that play all week,” Auburn head coach Johnnie Harris said. “We knew, from the way (Reese) caught the ball, what she was going to do. We knew that she was gonna drive it in that situation. … Once she put it down, we knew she was going to score. She wasn’t going to pass it.”
Mingo-Young finished with 13 points and five assists for Auburn. Kaitlyn Duhon scored eight points, and Taylen Collins had six points and seven rebounds.
JAMYA MINGO-YOUNG TOOK IT FROM ANGEL REESE 😱
Huge stop for @AuburnWBB! pic.twitter.com/5C86aKzrqu
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork)
January 14, 2024
“This one was on me,” Reese wrote on X. “We good! Geaux Tigers”
The win was Auburn’s first over a top-10 opponent since beating No. 4 Tennessee at home on Jan. 27, 2022.
The announced attendance for the game was 7,720, which was the largest crowd for a women’s game in the history of Auburn’s Neville Arena.
“Honestly, I don’t know if they were there for us, or if they were there just to see LSU,” Scott-Grayson said. “But we knew we had to go out there and put on a show, either way. We weren’t backing down from (LSU) just because of the name.”
LSU star Angel Reese had the ball stolen from him on critical possession in the Tigers’ upset loss to Auburn on Sunday.ESPN
Reese led LSU with 24 points. She has now scored double-digit points in all 50 of her games at LSU. Reese joined Seimone Augustus as the only players in LSU history to score in double figures in 50 consecutive games.
Aneesah Morrow added 12 points and 15 rebounds, and Flau’jae Johnson scored 12 points.
LSU star Angel Reese reacts to have the ball taken from her on a critical possession in LSU’s upset loss to Auburn on Sunday.ESPN
Auburn led by eight points at the end of the first quarter, but LSU responded with a 10-0 run to open the second quarter. The two sides went back and forth the rest of the way, with the lead changing 17 times.
Scott-Grayson drove for a layup with 6:34 left to give Auburn a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. LSU missed nine free throws, including four in the fourth quarter alone.
LSU only attempted two 3-pointers in the loss, with one of them being a desperation heave from Hailey Van Lith on the last play of the game. Auburn hit four of its 11 3-point attempts in the win.
“We knew Auburn would get in lanes and pressure you and make it hard to complete a pass,” LSU head coach Kim Mulkey said. “Energy and enthusiasm, (Auburn) just came at us. … Their effort was better than our effort.”
