There’s a slump, and there’s what the Auburn women went through in the first half Sunday against LSU.

Alli Smalley hit Auburn’s first field goal 3 minutes and 37 seconds into the game. The Tigers didn’t score again from the field until Smalley hit another jumper more than 10 minutes later, with 6:16 to play in the half.

By that time, LSU (17-7, 6-6) had run out to an 18-point lead and never looked back in a 75-51 win at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum on Sunday.

Auburn also had 11 turnovers in the first half, and didn’t score in the last 3:05.

It was Auburn’s 10th SEC loss, and its eighth in the past nine conference games.

“The game came down to the first half. We turned the ball over way too many times, and we missed shots,” head coach Nell Fortner said. “We missed easy shots. When you miss easy shots, it affects your confidence more than when you miss tough shots.

“But the turnovers hurt us, and we just couldn’t quite get it back on track.”

While Auburn (12-14, 3-10) struggled in the first half to make anything — the Tigers shot 19 percent (4-for-21) and scored just 13 points — LSU’s Allison Hightower certainly had no trouble.

The LSU senior guard scored a game-high 29, including 24 in the first half. Coming into Sunday’s game, Hightower was averaging 19.5 points per SEC contest. She had that many in the first 18 minutes against Auburn.

“She’s just a tough player,” Smalley said about Hightower. “She was the preseason (SEC) player of the year, so, obviously, we know what we’re up against when we face her. She was just knocking down shots — tough shots, too. We’d even be contesting her shots, and she’d still be knocking them down.”

It was a makeup game for Hightower, who only scored 9 in LSU’s overtime loss to Auburn earlier in the season in Baton Rouge, La.

“Coach just told me to take what the defense was giving me,” the senior guard said, “and if I’m open, just knock it down.”

And she did. Hightower was 11-for-16 from the floor, including 4-for-6 from behind the 3-point arc for the game — 9-for-13 in the first half.

The second half was better for Auburn, as the Tigers shot 51.9 percent from the field, but their 42-13 halftime deficit was way too much to overcome.

“Any time you give up 13 points to an Auburn basketball team, you feel very fortunate,” LSU head coach Van Chancellor said. “Last time, the little point guard (Morgan Toles) killed us, and the aircraft carrier (KeKe Carrier) killed us. Morgan had 17 last time we played them (in Baton Rouge), Carrier had 17, so we just decided that we were going to take that away from them tonight.”

Sunday, Toles had 8 points and Carrier had 4 points in just 8 minutes in the loss.

LSU led by as many as 33 points 5 minutes into the second half, when Chancellor played most of his bench.

LSU’s LaSondra Barrett scored 13 points, while Adrienne Webb added 10 in the win.

Jordan Greenleaf led Auburn in scoring for the second straight game, scoring 14 points, with 8 of them coming from the free-throw line. Blanche Alverson added 11 points, while Smalley scored 10.

Auburn will now have a week off before it travels to Mississippi State next Sunday.

It will be a chance for the team to regroup and focus on making the most out of the final three regular-season games, Fortner said.

“Kids are resilient,” said the head coach. “They don’t want to lose, they want to win. They play hard. They work hard. I think the problem we’re having right now is we’re a little fragile. When things don’t go well for us early, it’s hard for us to kind of bow up to that and get through it.

“But, that’s exactly what we have to do. If it’s not going well, you’ve still got to play, you’ve got to defend, you’ve got to keep people from scoring.

“We’re just in a little bit of a tough place right now, but it’s a great opportunity for them to build some character right now and come back and see how we can finish out.”

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