Auburn found out Wednesday that wins come a whole lot easier if you never give up the lead.

Lucas Hargrove drained a 3-pointer in the game’s opening minute and the Tigers never trailed from that point forward. No, the 82-63 victory wasn’t a perfect performance by any means, and Georgia is one of the conference’s perennial bottom-feeders, but it sure beat the unrewarded drama
Auburn has been accustomed to for the past month.

“It was real fun,” Hargrove said. “This is about the time last year we got on a roll, and hopefully, it can happen again.”

Before Wednesday, the Tigers’ previous two conference wins came by a combined 5 points. In three of their losses, they held double-digit leads in the first half and Saturday’s loss at Arkansas required overtime.

So, yeah, Wednesday was a bit of a reprieve on the blood pressure of the 5,552 fans at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum.

“We’ve played our best basketball in the conference season,” coach Jeff Lebo said.

“We haven’t always been rewarded with the ‘W’ when we had our chances to get some.

“It’s nice to see them get a good one tonight.”

The Tigers (12-12, 3-6 SEC) didn’t need any monstrous runs or hot streaks from beyond the arc to put away the Bulldogs. Instead, it was consistent basketball from start to finish.

That included a big night from Hargrove, a largely mistake-free performance from point guard DeWayne Reed (12 points, two turnovers) and a strong dose of unquantifiable defensive from post players Brendon Knox and Johnnie Lett to prevent Georgia (10-12, 2-7) from exploiting its height
advantage in the paint.

Hargrove’s boost of energy didn’t stop with his early 3-pointer. While the rest of his teammates were a combined 2-of-11 from beyond the arc,
Hargrove was 3-of-5 in the first half en route to 16 of the Tigers’ 45 points.

Hargrove played a strong second half to finish with a game-high 24 points and 11 rebounds, good for his sixth double-double of the season.

“Sometimes you just get that feeling,” Hargrove said.

Knox gave the Tigers 9 points off the bench and, more importantly, stayed out of foul trouble. In turn, Knox and Lett both played a large part in getting Georgia’s leading scorer, 6-foot-10 Trey Thompkins, in some serious foul trouble.

Thompkins played just 13 minutes, took four shots and committed six turnovers before fouling out with more than 8 minutes to play. Six-foot-11 center Albert Jackson took just one shot and didn’t grab any rebounds.

Georgia forward Travis Leslie tried to pick up the slack with 19 points and 17 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough to prevent undersized Auburn from winning the battle of the boards, 39-36.

“Defensively, I thought we were sharp,” Lebo said. “Our focus was on Thompkins. That was a big factor in helping us. I thought we did a nice job on him. He’s there go-to guy when they need a bucket.”

The Tigers used a 9-0 run with less than 5 minutes to play in the first half to establish the breathing room it carried throughout the entire second half. The closest Georgia got was 50-42 early in the second half before Auburn methodically outscored the Bulldogs the rest of the way, which allowed Lebo to play sparsely used players Rob Chubb, Jake Drum and Larry Williams Jr. in the final 2 minutes.

“They worked hard this week and they’ve worked hard the last few days,” Lebo said. “I like the group, I like my team, I really do.”

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