The first half was sloppy for Auburn, but after that, it was all Auburn who came away with an 80-71 win over Kentucky.

Eight turnovers led to 15 Kentucky points, and Auburn's backcourt trio of Wendell Green Jr., K.D. Johnson and Zep Jasper combined for three points. Yet, Auburn went on a late run in the half and went into the break down 33-29.

And then the Tigers carried all that momentum over to the second half. Auburn jumped out of the half quickly to tie it at 38, then took the lead courtesy of three Jabari Smith free throws to make it 41-40.

Auburn extended its lead in the second half to as many as 12, but Kentucky hung around and cut the Auburn lead to as little as four with 1:50 to go, but as usual, Jabari Smith stepped in.

Smith hit a tough jumper to push it back to six, then a few plays later caught two Kentucky players jumping and went underneath, feeding Walker Kessler with an easy dunk.

Kessler led the way for Auburn, with 19 points and seven rebounds while his frontcourt duo in Smith had 14 points and seven rebounds.

After being held scoreless in the first half, Green heated up and went on a mini-run of his own knocking down two threes and getting Auburn Arena on its feet. Green finished with 11 points.

The free throws were key for Auburn in the second half, as the Tigers knocked down 21-of-23 attempts at the charity strike.

With Kentucky down seven and trying to make a last-ditch comeback with less than a minute left, Davion Mintz stepped on the baseline and gave the ball back to Auburn to ice it.

Auburn is now winners of 15-straight and is in a prime position to vault to No. 1 in the AP Poll. The Tigers are also in a prime spot atop the SEC for the SEC regular season title, up one game on Texas A&M and up two games on everybody else.