The Auburn women’s basketball team played No. 8 Texas A&M tight into the fourth quarter but ultimately fell to the Aggies 84-69 Thursday night at Auburn Arena.
Auburn entered the fourth quarter down by eight and quickly pulled within six points before Texas A&M shot 83 percent from the field in the final period.
The categories that Texas A&M held the most significant advantages over Auburn were rebounds and points in the paint, with the Aggies out-rebounding the Tigers 41-28 and outscoring them 46-26. Auburn Head Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy was happy about the team’s effort but felt that those two stats are what hurt Auburn in the end.
“I thought we came out and gave the number eight team in the country a really good run,” said Williams-Flournoy. “I thought we had some good energy and they hurt us where we didn’t want them to hurt us and that was rebounding and points in the paint.”
Both teams struggled offensively in the first quarter, with Auburn shooting under 19% from the field and Texas A&M shooting under 17%.
“It was probably the worst quarter of basketball on both sides. It was awful,” said Williams-Flournoy. “It gave us a good start defensively though and we didn’t have to play from so far behind like we’ve had to do in some first quarters.”
Honesty Scott-Grayson led Auburn with 21 points including four three-pointers. However, Auburn struggled as a team beyond the arc, making only ten of 35 shots.
Auburn’s defense was able to force 16 turnovers, but Williams-Flournoy was not satisfied with Auburn scoring only 13 points off of them.
“We turned them over 16 times, but we only got 13 points off of it. And with a team as a good as Texas A&M is in their half-court defense, we want to try to get some easy buckets in transition,” said Williams-Flournoy.
Texas A&M forward N’dea Jones gave Auburn trouble on both ends of the floor. Jones had a game-high 23 points on 11/14 shooting along with game-highs in rebounds with 12 and five steals. Jones’ double-double was her 11th of the season—the most in the country.
Auburn star forward Unique Thompson was limited in the first half to two points but rallied to score 16 in the second half. Thompson also attempted and made her first career three-point shot late in the fourth quarter.
Despite the loss, Thompson made history in the first quarter as she passed DeWanna Bonner for second place in rebounds all-time at Auburn with 1,051.
Auburn falls to 5-10 (0-7) with the loss while No. 8 Texas A&M improves to 15-1 (6-1).
Auburn’s tough schedule continues when it travels to Fayetteville to take on No. 19 Arkansas. The Razorbacks are coming off of a 90-87 win over No. 3 UConn. Tip-off is set between Auburn and Arkansas for 2 p.m. CT at Bud Walton Arena.
