Mike Szvetitz | A View From The Lazy Boy

01/31 at 01:11 AM

Man, Auburn knows how to make it interesting.

The Tigers’ fourth consecutive win over Alabama certainly was.

In a season in which Auburn has yet to play a complete 40-minute game offensively and defensively, it sure can show up for 12 seconds — the last 12 seconds.

The last 12 seconds of the last Iron Ball in the last season of Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum.

Another Auburn win. That’s four in a row over Alabama, six out of the last seven and 11 out of the last 14 in its home gym.

The Crimson Tide hasn’t won on the Plains since 2006. That’s four years ago.

Jeff Lebo’s excited, you can tell.

When asked if he’d given any thought to the streak or how to explain it, Auburn’s head coach shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

“I don’t know,” he said after a few seconds of silence. “We’re happy to win this one.”

And they should be. He should be.

It’s just the Tigers’ second SEC win of the season.

Hey, didn’t AU start last season 2-5 in the conference? I’m just saying.

Just eight more to match last year’s total.

Just four more games left in Beard-Eaves, with the last one against Alabama in the books. Auburn closes out the 41-year-old building with a 22-20 record over its biggest rival.

“To win the last Iron Bowl in Beard-Eaves …” contemplated senior Lucas Hargrove, who made the game-winning free-throw with 3.1 seconds left. “When I first came to college a while back, I wasn’t really big into (the rivalry). As you live here, it grows on you a little bit.”

Just like Auburn’s win streak over Alabama, which now, at four games, matches the longest streak over the Tide since the 1999 and 2000 seasons.

It’s definitely not the way first-year Alabama coach Anthony Grant wanted to start his first Iron Ball.

“Tough loss,” is all he had to say when asked what he thought about his first Auburn-Alabama game.

Enough said. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Now the Tide will have to wait until Auburn’s new arena opens next season to have another shot at figuring out the Tigers on the Plains.

They couldn’t do it Saturday. Just like the previous three times.

“It was huge. It was a huge game,” Lebo said of just getting the win. “Not only that for us, it was an Auburn-Alabama game, and that adds a little bit extra to the table.”

It also proves that Auburn can win a game. A close game. A game that the Tigers have been in since the opening tip.

Four of Auburn’s five SEC losses have come with their own “punch in the gut” moments, where the Tigers take a big lead and look to be in control, only to let it slip away.

Games they could have won. Maybe.

Kentucky was the only game Auburn didn’t have a lead only to blow it. Nope, against the then-No. 2 Wildcats, Auburn just trailed by 19 in the first half. But that game was an anomaly, as Auburn came back to tie it up and have a chance — albeit ever so slim — to win the game. That, obviously, didn’t happen.

Saturday, it stayed close the whole way, and when it mattered, Auburn didn’t throw it away.

That’s progress.

“We found ways to lose games in the last 5 or 6 minutes of the game,” Lebo said, “so it’s nice for the kids to find a way to win a game.”

Just nine more to play in the regular season. Four more at Beard-Eaves.

One thing’s for sure, it should be interesting.

MIKE SZVETITZ is sports editor of the Opelika-Auburn News. He may be reached at 737-2513.