ATHENS, Ga. — At 6-5 in SEC play following Wednesday’s 71-59 victory against Georgia, Auburn has reached territory it hasn’t sniffed since Jeff Lebo took over five years ago.

The Tigers haven’t been above .500 this late in the season since they finished the 2002-03 season 8-7. In fact, the only other time they had more SEC wins than losses under Lebo was after they beat Vanderbilt to kick off the 2006-07 conference schedule.

That 1-0 start to the season, which was immediately followed by two losses, was frivolous enough for senior forward Korvotney Barber to completely overlook it.

“This is the first time we’ve been over .500 since I’ve been here, man,” Barber said. “It feels really good.”

The Tigers almost let that good feeling slip away with a puzzling second half, which had no business being as tense as it was.

Auburn (17-9, 6-5) raced out to a big lead that got as large as 29 before it settled for a 45-19 lead going into halftime.

The pace was fast, Tay Waller was hot again, balls were bouncing Auburn’s way, Barber was dominating the boards and Georgia came out totally flat. Life was about as good as it gets on the road in the SEC.

“We were good offensively. Defensively, for the most part, we were pretty good,” Lebo said. “We were awfully good and sharp.”

But Auburn hasn’t had the opportunity to play with many leads during conference play, especially ones like Wednesday’s, and it didn’t exactly blow by the majority of its inferior non-conference foes.

So it was new territory — territory that will likely have a different strategy if it ever presents itself again.

“Coach told us to slow it up a little bit,” said Waller, who finished with a game-high 20 points. “That’s not our style, really.”

The Tigers had just 12 points in the first 15 minutes of the second half, as they waited for ideal shots that rarely presented themselves. Georgia, meanwhile, pushed at every opportunity, forced 11 turnovers and hit eight of its first 12 3-pointers.

Auburn’s lead was down to 6 with 3:38 to play.

“I don’t know why we slowed it down, for real, because we like to run,” said Barber, who scored 11 points and matched a career-high with 18 rebounds.

“It got very scary there,” Waller said.

Auburn, though, lived to laugh about it.

The work the Tigers did in the first half, when they hit 50 percent of their shots, outrebounded the Bulldogs by 12 and knocked down eight 3-pointers, allowed them to overcome a clunker of a second half.

It’s only natural, Lebo said.

“It’s such a momentum game and things happen at the 3-point line,” Lebo said. “They made some shots from the 3 and got back into it and made some plays and just the momentum shifted.

“I was proud of the way we responded, and we made some really key buckets going down the stretch.”

Auburn’s latest stop on its SEC slate was about as easy as it’s going to get.

The Tigers, who remained a game back of second-place Mississippi State after the Bulldogs’ win Wednesday, travel to Western division-leading LSU on Saturday. They face the Bengal Tigers again at home to cap the regular season. Road contests at Mississippi State and Alabama also loom.

“Any time you can win on the road, I don’t care where you’re playing. If you get a league win on the road, they’re hard to come by,” Lebo said. “I’m proud of the way our team played.

“It wasn’t as pretty in the second half, but we won the game.”

| 737-2561