Smith excited to face former team

AUBURN | Monday night’s game against Georgia State will mean a little more to one of Auburn’s newest players.

Graduate transfer LaRon Smith played for the Panthers for two seasons from 2012-14.

“It means a lot. It is a great opportunity to get to play against the first school I went to,” Smith said. “I had a lot of hard times at that school, but I am glad that I overcame it and it should be a very good game and very fun for me.”

Smith first transferred to Bethune-Cookman where he sat out the 2014-15 season before being named the MEAC Defensive Player of the Year last year. He’s spending his final season of college basketball trying to return Auburn to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2003.

In Friday’s season-opening 83-66 win over North Florida, Smith scored seven points, grabbed seven rebounds and had one block in 17 minutes of action.

“I feel like I was just getting back into the groove,” Smith said. “I don’t think I played too well. I am capable of doing way more than what I showed the first game. Hopefully, this game I pick it back up and get back to how I usually am.”

GSU opened the season with a 111-69 win over Thomas University and features three D-I transfer in its starting lineup. Senior forward Jeremy Hollowell, an Indiana transfer, had 23 points and five rebounds in the opener while senior forward Willie Clayton, a Charlotte transfer, had 11 points, 13 rebounds and five blocked shots.

“Hollowell is definitely good enough to beat us and good enough to play for anyone in the SEC, but there are other weapons. He has other guys that can really play,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “We are going to see a lot of zone. We might not see one possession of man-to-man. We’ve known that going in. We will see a 1-3-1, a match-up zone. They are really good at it.

“In watching our game against North Florida, I am sure they are going to be very physical with us and we are going to have to respond to that.”

Smith knows exactly what Auburn can expect from GSU, a team that beat Baylor in the 2015 NCAA Tournament.

“For them, this is a very big game,” he said. “When you are in that level, you look forward to this type of game. These are the games that you hope you catch a high major sleeping. You try and come in and win and go very hard.”

Tip-off at the Auburn Arena is scheduled for 8 p.m. CT on SEC Network.