The Auburn women’s basketball team overcame a 15-point second-half deficit to tie the game late, but could not complete in the comeback in a 54-51 loss to Arkansas on Sunday in Neville Arena.
The loss snaps what was a three-game winning streak for the Tigers. Auburn head coach Johnnie Harris started her press conference with a sigh after the disappointing loss. No. 1 South Carolina next heads into town Thursday.
Auburn tied the game 51-51 with 51 seconds left on a Kaitlyn Duhon jumper. Arkansas moved ahead 52-51 on a free throw with seven seconds left. On Auburn’s ensuing inbound, Arkansas was charged with an intentional foul giving Auburn two free throws and possession, to the delight of a Neville Arena crowd that had gotten rowdy during the second-half comeback bid.
But Auburn then missed both free throws, and on the inbounds with possession, was charged with a five-second turnover. Forced to foul, Arkansas hit two free throws on the other end to make it 54-51 and end the game for Auburn in frustrating fashion.
People are also reading…
“Free throws killed us,” Harris said, and it wasn’t just those two at the end of the game: Auburn finished 14-of-27 from the foul line.
It was an ugly game all around. Arkansas won shooting 27% from the field and only 13% from 3-point range. Auburn shot 32% from the field but only hit one of 14 3-pointers. Arkansas led 16-5 at the end of the first quarter, 32-19 at halftime, and had built a 15-point lead early in the third quarter at 34-19 before the Tigers started to claw back into it by making stops and forcing turnovers. Harris said her starters weren’t getting into press defense in the first half and in the second half she put in four bench players, while keeping veteran Honesty Scott-Grayson in the game with them. Their effort, she said, got Auburn back in the game.
“I felt like they played ugly but we had a lot to do with the way they played,” Harris said, giving her team some credit.
Auburn entered having won three in a row against Ole Miss, Kentucky and Florida, but the early hole this time was too much to overcome.
“I thought we started out flat,” Harris said. “Our intentions were to press from the beginning and I think there in the first half we got into it one time. I just thought we weren’t playing hard, which is why I went to my bench in the second half. Honesty was out there with that group but I thought they came in and pressured the ball. They got after it like I wanted to from the beginning and brought us back.
“We had a hard time hitting shots, but we scored in transition. But at the end of the day, we’re 14-of-27 from the free-throw line. We got to the line. We just didn’t make them.”
Top-ranked South Carolina enters Thursday’s game an undefeated 23-0, fresh off a win Sunday against No. 5 UConn.