When LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey strutted onto the floor at Auburn’s Neville Arena Sunday afternoon, she did so in purple heels, black slacks and a purple and white tiger stripped sweater vest, complete with a sequined tiger sewn onto the front.

Admittedly, the outfit was a bit reserved for Mulkey, who has become known for her flashy and eclectic wardrobe. Just this month, LSU honored its head coach with a “Dress Like Kim Mulkey” night, inviting fans to dig through their closets, pull out their biggest statement piece and come watch Mulkey and the defending national champions play.

Meanwhile, Auburn’s Johnnie Harris took the floor in blue jeans with ripped rear pockets, a white Auburn t-shirt and a black, hooded jacket, which was kept unzipped.

The flashiest part of Harris’ outfit? The silver “Prada” badge that adorned the left chest pocket of her jacket.

Meanwhile, both coaching staffs largely followed suit as Mulkey’s assistants wore slacks, dresses and blazers, while Harris’ assistants wore t-shirts, blue jeans and athletic shoes.

For Mulkey and her sideline, the fashion statements are fitting for a team that’s spent the better part of a year under the national spotlight after winning the national championship last season with its star-studded roster.

Everywhere LSU goes, cameras seem to follow. As such, Mulkey and her staff look the part.

As for the blue-collar appearance of Harris and her staff? Well, that’s fitting too as they continue to work in the background and dig the Auburn program out of the mud it’s been in for years.

It wasn’t a secret coming into Sunday afternoon’s game that Auburn was the underdog, despite being the home team.

MORE: ‘We knew how big it was’: Auburn capitalizes on spotlight, stuns Kim Mulkey and No. 7 LSU

While Harris and her squad were looking to snap a three-game losing streak and find their first win of SEC play, Mulkey and her team were rolling into Neville Arena on a nation’s best 16-game win streak.

If Auburn was going to pull off the unthinkable, it was going to have to put on its blue jeans and pull itself up from its bootstraps – because that was a dangerously talented roster it was lining up against.

LSU had Angel Reese, who entered the night averaging 19.8 points per game after being named last year’s Sporting News Athlete of the Year, ESPN’s Best Breakthrough Athlete and the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player.

LSU also had Hailey Van Lith, who transferred in from Louisville after averaging 19.7 points per game and leading the Cardinals to the Final Four in 2022.

Together, Reese and Van Lith help lead an LSU team that led the country in offense as it averaged 93.8 points per game coming into Sunday’s matchup. Mulkey’s squad also ranked second in the nation in scoring margin as the Bayou Bengals were beating teams by an average of 37.3 points per game.

Auburn, on the other hand, didn’t boast a roster of household names or nation-leading stats.

But that didn’t matter.

Because what Auburn did have was a roster and staff of coaches who were eager at the opportunity to take advantage of the national attention that came with hosting LSU.

“We knew how big it was,” Auburn’s Harris said. “Our players knew that it was going to be a big crowd.”

Could they have guessed Sunday’s crowd would’ve been the largest women’s basketball crowd in Neville Arena history? Probably not.

Nonetheless, more than 7,700 fans spent their Sunday afternoon – a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Auburn, at that – under the roof of Neville Arena to watch Auburn take on the defending national champions.

Fans of which team, exactly?

Who’s to say.

“Honestly, I don’t know if they were there for us, or if they were there just to see LSU,” said Auburn guard Honesty Scott-Grayson. “But we knew we had to go out there and put on a show, either way. We weren’t backing down from (LSU) just because of the name.”

And Auburn didn’t back down. Not when LSU ripped off a 10-0 run to start the second quarter. Not when Auburn went to the locker room trailing by three points. And not when Angel Reese came barreling toward the basket looking to tie the game with 10 seconds to play.

Instead, in each of those moments, Auburn leaned back into its gameplan.

“It wasn’t anything magical,” Harris said. “It was just, ‘This is what we’re going to do. You have to get it done. Everybody has to do their job.’”

Harris knew her team likely didn’t have the offensive power to hang around with LSU in a high-scoring affair.

Heading into Sunday’s matchup, LSU had posted 90-plus points in eight of its games. Meanwhile, Auburn had only eclipsed the 90-point mark once.

So if Auburn was going to beat LSU, it was going to be on the back of its gritty and hard-nosed defense.

“They just got after us. And anything we tried to do, whether it was a pass or a shot, they made it hard,” Mulkey said. “Everything we did was hard.”

LSU scored just 62 points in Sunday’s 67-62 loss to Auburn — the second-fewest points a Mulkey-led LSU team has ever scored, coming second to scoring 60 against South Carolina in 2022.

“Their effort was just better than our effort,” Mulkey said. “Their effort was just better. Their defensive energy and lateral movement and things… That’s the kind of coach Johnnie (Harris) is. They just got after us.”

And ESPN was there to capture it all on Sunday as an Auburn women’s basketball game made its way onto ESPN’s flagship channel for the first time in 20 years.

But even with the Worldwide Leader in the house, Harris and her coaching staff weren’t going to bother with ironing out their Sunday best for the occasion.

After all, blue jeans, t-shirts and Prada jackets fit this Auburn team and its blue-collar mentality.

Not to mention, Harris’ relaxed outfit choice meant there was little to no risk of damaging her her clothes when her team doused her with water bottles during the celebration that ensued in Auburn’s locker room after the game.