Auburn women's basketball defeats Tulane, advances to second round of NIT
In Auburn’s first postseason tournament game since 2019, the Tigers defeated the Tulane Green Wave 73-58 to advance to the second round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
“Our game plan was to come out and impose our will and I think I felt like our team did that,” said Auburn head coach Johnnie Harris. “I felt like they played extremely hard, made it difficult for them to get into their offense early in the ballgame. We got in a little foul trouble there early but we were playing really hard and we got some steals.”
The Tigers took control early and never gave it up, leading for the entirety of the game. Despite Tulane going on a 10-0 run in the second quarter, Auburn was dominant the whole time. Auburn was led in scoring by Honesty Scott-Grayson who had 18 points, followed closely by Kharyssa Richardson who had 16. Aicha Coulibaly led the Tigers in assists with six and rebounds with seven.
Scott-Grayon, Richardson and Sydney Shaw followed closely in rebounding, each grabbing six.
“It's been a while since I've had a postseason,” Scott-Grayson said. “To be in the position that we're in, I feel like we have no choice but to give it our all and get the job done.”
The Tigers shot 30-67 (44.8%) from the field, 4-17 (23.5%) from three-point range and 9-12 (75%) from the free-throw line. Tulane was led in scoring by Kyren Whittington and Dynah Jones with 13 points each. Rachel Hakes led the Green Wave in assists with four. Marta Galic led the team in rebounds with nine.
Tulane shot 20-51 (39.2%) from the field, 6-13 (46.2%) from three-point range and 12-16 (75%) from the free-throw line.
The Tigers dominated the transition game, scoring 15 fast-break points to Tulane’s seven. Auburn also controlled the turnover battle as it gave the ball away eight times resulting in only five points for Tulane. The Green Wave on the other hand gave the ball away 22 times, resulting in 22 points for the Tigers.
“We worked on transition offense, but we also worked on getting stops and going and transition and make good making good decisions,” Harris said. “And then when we didn't have something easy we would pull it out.”
Auburn will be playing the Clemson Tigers (18-15, 7-11 ACC) on the road in the tournament's second round on March 21st at 6:00 p.m. CT.
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