Jeff Lebo did his best impersonation of a stumping politician Thursday.

The fifth-year coach shook hands and fraternized with students at the new campus union Thursday to drum up some support heading into today’s conference finale against No. 12 LSU.

It’s not that he really had to do it, though. His team’s performance has been selling itself of late.

Today’s 3 p.m. game at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum, which can be seen on Raycom Sports (Channel 12 in Lee County), promises to be a sellout — Auburn’s first of the season.

As of Thursday, only 1,000 tickets remained. Maintenance officials will raise a partition in the upper deck, freeing up an additional 1,500 seats

When the women’s basketball team set the Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum attendance record (12,067) in January, the partition was lifted and fans lined the walkways all the way around the arena.

The 40-year-old arena’s listed capacity is 10,500.

“It’s just an emotional time,” Lebo said. “Usually you have stretches where you play well for about a week-and-a-half and we have done it for almost an entire month.

“At this time of the year, it’s a hard thing to do.”

But Auburn has made the hard look easy of late, as it’s won seven of its last eight to clinch second place in the SEC West and a first-round bye in next week’s conference tournament in Tampa, Fla.

And though it’s been debunked by a number of college basketball experts, Lebo said the team’s play of late has at least elevated the Tigers to be in the conversation for an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.

“If you win 10 league games in the Southeastern Conference, that’s a heckuva lot of league wins,” Lebo said. “You look at us right now, as we speak, we have the second-most wins in the SEC.“

To get to that point, though, Auburn will have to beat the best team in the conference — something it couldn’t two weeks ago in Baton Rouge.

In one of the most physical games of the season, Auburn hung with LSU, but fell short, 79-72.

When he got his team prepared for the last game, Lebo upped the intensity in practice. This time, he just reminded them of what happened 14 days ago, when Korvotney Barber was left with a torn jersey and a big scar on his arm and the Tigers left town with a loss.

“Those guys will be fresh in our kids’ minds,” Lebo said.

While serving as a key tuneup for the SEC Tournament, today’s game will also be the last home game for Auburn’s four seniors.

Regular starters Barber, Rasheem Barrett and Quantez Robertson, along with walk-on Drew Smith, will be honored before today’s tip.

“It’s typically an emotional day and an emotional time,” Lebo said. “You just hope that your seniors play well in those games. Sometimes that pressure and emotion takes its toll on you.”

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