01/03 at 11:45 PM

Josh Wallace clutched a basketball in both hands, wearing a huge smile as he sat down for a postgame interview Monday.

The Pensacola, Fla., native had a death grip on the game ball from Auburn’s 65-60 win over Florida State, a team he grew up watching.

He wasn’t going to give it up easily.

“I don’t know,” Wallace said with a smile. “They’re probably going to take it from me.”

Nothing can take away the show Wallace and the Tigers (7-7) gave to the 5,359 gathered at Auburn Arena on Monday night, in which they managed to reel off their fourth win in a row and beat a team that’s only previous losses had come against No. 2 Ohio State, Florida and Baylor.

It was a win made all the more surprising by the fact that — just two weeks ago — the Tigers fell to transitional Division-I team Presbyterian.

“Since the beginning of the season, we’ve gotten a lot better,” said Wallace, who finished with 9 points and seven assists. “And it’s starting to show.”

Florida State (11-4) got off to a frigid start in the first half, shooting 24.2 percent (8-of-33) from the floor and 6.7 percent (1-of-15) from 3-point range.

Auburn took a 27-22 lead into the break behind 11 points from freshman Josh Langford, who knocked down 3-of-4 from beyond the arc in the first half.

Langford finished with a career-high 16 points, including a 4-of-5 clip from 3-point range. The freshman had made only 4-of-12 all year entering the game.

“We came out to play hard against Florida State,” Langford said. “We knew ESPN picked us to lose by like 20. So we just came out, played hard and knew.”

The Seminoles put together a 9-2 run out of the break — punctuated by a Chris Singleton steal and slam — to re-take the lead, 31-29, with 17:32 to go.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by Allen Payne and Earnest Ross, along with a 3-point play by Kenny Gabriel, capped off an 11-0 run in 2:28 to give the Tigers their largest lead of the night, 45-36, with 11:15 remaining.

Florida State came right back, ripping off a 10-1 run ending on a Michael Snaer 3-pointer to tie the game at 46.

Langford hit his fourth 3-pointer of the night to put Auburn back up 49-46 with 4:42 to go, and the Tigers put away the Seminoles down the stretch.

It was a welcome change for the Tigers from the past two games, in which they squandered a 29-point lead against Georgia Southern and let Grambling get a glimpse of hope after going up big Friday.

“Don’t do what we’ve been doing,” Wallace said of coach Tony Barbee’s message to the team at halftime. “We’ve been playing great in the first half, then coming out in the second half and falling off.

“We almost did it there, but we picked it up in the end.”

Ross scored 10 points and pulled down 11 rebounds, and Rob Chubb also scored 10 for the Tigers.

Singleton had a game-high 20 points to go along with 10 rebounds, and Derwin Kitchen scored 12 for the Seminoles.

Florida State, which had a marked size advantage over the Tigers, made 5-of-26 3-pointers on the night.

“I didn’t think they took advantage (of their size),” Barbee said. “If they would’ve thrown it to the block time after time tonight, we would have had issues.

“But I thought we did a good job mixing up our defense. As good as we were defensively, it was a case of them not making shots as well.”

Auburn heads into its Saturday SEC opener against LSU with four straight wins and a .500 record in tow.

Even if Wallace ends up not getting to keep his game ball, at least he and his teammates will have momentum.

“We wanted to go in letting everybody know we can compete with anybody,” Ross said. “As long as we keep playing hard, we can compete with anybody in the country.”

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