11/14 at 11:10 PM

Frankie Sullivan’s not all the way back from the ACL tear that cost him all but six games last season.

But the junior guard’s shot, at least, is starting to look the way it did before the injury.

Sullivan hit five 3-pointers and poured in 22 points Monday night, as Auburn downed Kennesaw State, 68-55, to get out to its first 2-0 start since 2006-07.

Tigers coach Tony Barbee said it was good to have segments of Sullivan’s game back, even if he still has some work to do in other areas.

“In terms of what he is capable of doing offensively, that is the Frankie we all know,” Barbee said. “He has the ability to score and make shots. He has the ability to want to take big shots and make them.

“He just has to continue to improve his conditioning.”

That showed mostly on the defensive end, Barbee said.

And Sullivan, who hadn’t topped the 20-point mark since scoring a career-high 27 against Florida in the 2010 SEC Tournament, couldn’t help but agree.

“Everybody who knows me knows I pride myself on my defense, and I don’t think I did a good job of helping my team out with that,” Sullivan said. “I was a little skeptical about my jump shot because I wasn’t hitting it over the first few games. But I see that I still have it.”

Even with Sullivan’s outburst, the Tigers (2-0) let Kennesaw State (0-2), a team that lost by 54 points to Wisconsin on Saturday, hang around for most of the game.

The Owls were even without 6-foot-7 guard Markeith Cummings, who sat out the game in sweats on the bench for an undisclosed reason.

Cummings, who led the Atlantic Sun in scoring last year, scored 18 of the Owls’ 31 points in their loss to Wisconsin.

Tigers coach Tony Barbee said he didn’t know the Owls would be without Cummings until about 5 minutes before the game, but his players knew earlier because they saw he was not dressed out during warm-ups.

“That really surprised us,” Sullivan said. “And we came out nonchalant.”

The Tigers went into the half up 9 points, then doubled their lead in the first 3 minutes of the second half, with a Kenny Gabriel putback staking them to a 38-20 lead with 17:00 to go.

Kennesaw State chipped away at the lead for the next 10 minutes, keeping the Tigers in range, and Aaron Anderson made a breakaway dunk off an inbounds pass to bring the Owls within 53-46 with 6:32 to go.

“The whole game, we were just kind of like, ‘Yeah, they have no shot,’” said center Rob Chubb, who finished with 13 points and seven rebounds. “It was not a good mindset to have. As soon as you take your opponent for granted, they start taking advantage of it.”

That was as close as the Owls would get.

Chris Denson and Sullivan hit back-to-back 3-pointers to touch of a 13-3 Auburn run that ended Kennesaw State’s upset bid.

“I like the way we responded, but we shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place,” Barbee said. “That is the issue I have. We did respond, but we can’t afford to take anybody for granted.

“We are not that good.”

Kennesaw State struggled without its top offensive threat, hitting only 18-of-55 (32.7 percent) from the floor and 5-of-19 (26.3 percent) from 3-point range.

Aaron Anderson posted a double-double for the Owls, scoring 13 points and grabbing 13 rebounds, Spencer Dixon scored 11 and Nick Turner added 10.

Gabriel supplemented the Tigers’ scoring with 9 points and seven rebounds, and Varez Ward scored 9 points to go along with six assists.

“Last year, we would have easily lost that game,” Sullivan said. “But we hung together as a team and won.”