A look back on 2024 in Auburn Athletics

2024 was a historic year for Auburn in a number of different ways. Upset wins, attendance records, conference championships and national championships highlighted a year that will go down in the history books as one of the best in the university’s history. Let’s take a walk down memory lane and revisit some of the biggest things to happen to Auburn in 2024.

January

The year got off to a flying start as women’s basketball pulled off a massive upset over one of the most publicity-generating teams in the history of the sport. Coach Johnnie Harris’s Tigers took down LSU and Angel Reese, as a record 7,720 people were in attendance to see Auburn topple the No. 4 team in the nation 67-62. 

A great month for women’s basketball continued when the Tigers hosted Alabama. Legendary alumna and two-time WNBA champion DeWanna Bonner returned to the plains to have her number 24 hung in the rafters of Neville Arena. Harris and company would go on to a dominating 78-65 victory to cap off a historic afternoon.

February

The second month of 2024 was kicked off by another big win inside Neville Arena. This time, gymnastics took down in-state rivals Alabama 197.725-197.050 thanks to program-record and career-high scores. A 49.5 on vault from the team was good enough to tie the program record for that event. It was Auburn’s largest margin of victory over Alabama in what was just their fourth win all-time against the Crimson Tide.

In the pool, Auburn hosted the SEC Swimming and Diving Championships at the James E. Martin Aquatic Center. The men’s team boasted a second-place finish, while the women’s team took home fourth. 

This whole article could be dedicated to softball’s ace Maddie Penta, but February was when her season of domination got off to a blazing start. On the 25th, the right-hander threw her fifth career no-hitter. Four days later, she topped her effort by throwing a perfect game, just the third in the program’s history. As if those two feats weren’t enough, Penta went on to set the program wins record before being named an NFCA All-American for the second time in her career.

March

March was packed for the Tigers. Men’s basketball kicked it off with a dominating run to win the SEC Tournament championship in Nashville. They would take down South Carolina, Mississippi State and Florida by a combined 57 points on their way to the title.

Men’s and women’s swimming and diving competed at the NCAA Championships. Both Tiger teams secured top-20 finishes and 18 athletes received All-American honors.

Baseball picked up its signature win of the season when they took down the top-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks at Plainsman Park. A three-run home run from Cooper McMurray put the Tigers up for good as they held on to win 8-6.

Another conference title made its way back to the plains in March, as equestrian won their sixth-consecutive SEC championship. In her first season in charge, head coach Jessica Braswell led her team to a 13-6 win over hosts Texas A&M.

April

April was a month full of accomplishments on the golf course. Women’s golf finished second in the stroke play competition as the team finished even through 54 holes at the SEC Championships. Three Tigers, including freshman Anna Davis, were named second-team All -SEC.

Perhaps Auburn’s team of the year, men’s golf began their postseason quest in a big way. The Tigers came away from the SEC Championships with a team championship and an individual champion. Freshman Jackson Koivun took the individual crown by six strokes, becoming the first Auburn freshman to take home the solo title. Two days later, the team joined in on the fun, taking down No. 2 Vanderbilt 3-2 to win the match play competition.

The University also made waves in April by announcing the Tigers would be embarking on a 10-year partnership with Nike. This came after Auburn had been with Under Armour for the past 18 years. The deal will officially begin in July of 2025.

May

Tennis took center stage in the first few weeks of May. The men’s team qualified for the NCAA tournament, where they were able to pick up a first-round win over Pepperdine. Freshman Nicholas Heng delivered a clutch win with the match tied 3-3 to see the Tigers into the second round. 

Women’s tennis followed suit, shutting out BYU in their opener in the NCAA tournament. The win marked the fourth season in a row that the Tigers advanced to round two of the national tournament.

The aforementioned men’s golf team continued their postseason success right into the month of May and the NCAA tournament. After a sixth-place finish in stroke play qualified the Tigers for match play, wins over Virginia, Ohio State and Florida State gave the program its first national championship. After Koivun and Brendan Valdes won their matches, a par to go 2-up on 17 from J.M. Butler clinched the hardware and capped off what was truly a historic run for Auburn and head coach Nick Clinard.

June

The Tigers lit up the track in June. At the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Auburn took home all sorts of accolades. Seven first-team All-American performances, a second-place finish for the men’s team and a national championship in the men’s 4x100-meter relay highlighted a tremendous week at Hayward Field. Azeem Fahmi, Kayinsola Ajayi, Dario Matau and Makanakaishe Charamba combined for a school record and collegiate number three all-time 38.03 in the 4x100 to bring the second national championship home to the plains in as many months.

July

Across the pond, a number of Tigers represented their respective nations at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Suni Lee, former Auburn gymnast, showed out on the highest stage. Lee took home three medals, a gold in the team competition, and bronze in the all-around and bars.

Multiple members of the national-champion 4x100 meter squad made their way to Paris as well. Charamba (Zimbabwe) made the finals in the 200m, where he took eighth place. Ajayi (Nigeria), Fahmi (Malaysia), and Favour Ashe (Nigeria) all competed in the 100m. Fahmi and Ashe both qualified for the semifinals.

Incoming freshman and then 18-year-old Emily Hallifax represented France in the 10m synchronized diving competition. Hallifax and her partner would go on to finish eighth in the world.

Former Auburn basketball standout JT Thor made his Olympic debut with South Sudan. It was the country's first time competing in men's basketball at the Olympic Games.

August

With students back on campus, action ramped right back up in the month of August. Athletics went undefeated in the first month of the new academic year thanks to wins from soccer, volleyball and football.

September

Soccer shined in September, going a perfect 8-0 in its non-conference slate without conceding a single goal. Auburn and Oklahoma State were the last two teams in Division I to hold clean sheets on the season. This historic defensive run, along with goalscoring talent all over the pitch helped the Tigers to their highest-ever ranking in the United Coaches poll, where they checked in at No. 6.

Volleyball jumped in on the action as well, grabbing a big win over the Kentucky Wildcats. After quickly falling down two sets to none, the Tigers completed the reverse sweep to finish off the upset. Before then, the Tigers hadn’t won a set over Kentucky in their previous 10 matchups and hadn’t bested them in nearly 15 years.

Equestrian started their 2024-2025 campaign off with a bang, taking down the No. 1 TCU Horned Frogs in the opening match of the season. The win gave the Tigers the top ranking in the NCEA poll, where they remain going into 2025.

October

There was nothing scary in October for women’s golf and Anna Davis. Davis continued her fabulous form from her freshman season into the Illini Women’s Invitational. Her 13-under over three rounds was good enough for the lowest 54-hole score in the program’s history. 

November

More history was made in November. Women’s basketball won big over Little Rock to secure the program’s 1,000th all-time win. The night also ended with a program record, as Taliah Scott, in her first game as an Auburn Tiger, tied the school record for most three-pointers made in a single game with seven.

After 26 seasons at the helm of women’s soccer, Karen Hoppa went out on a high. In her final season, she guided her team to an NCAA tournament appearance and secured the Auburn Soccer Complex as a host site. The Tigers took out FIU 4-1 to give them their first tournament win since 2016.

Junior DJ Bennett headlined for women’s tennis in the penultimate month of the year, going on a deep run in the NCAA Singles Tournament. Bennett cruised to the final match, winning her previous five to get to the last stage of the tournament. Her effort came up just short, but a national runner-up trophy and All-American status is solid consolation.

Up in Madison, Wisconsin, three Tigers competed at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. After her big run in the 6k, Brenda Jepchirchir walked away as an All-American, going sub-20 minutes to finish 21st place.

On the last Saturday before Thanksgiving, Auburn football found the breakthrough win they had been searching for all season. In a four-overtime thriller, the Tigers toppled No. 15 Texas A&M 43-41. There would be no keeping the fans off the field, as those inside Jordan-Hare Stadium quickly flooded onto Pat Dye Field following the final play of the game.

To cap off arguably the busiest month of the year, men’s basketball took a trip to Hawaii. In a dominating display of basketball, the Tigers rolled through one of the highest-caliber tournaments college hoops has to offer to win the Maui Invitational. Beating No. 5 Iowa State, No. 12 North Carolina and Memphis in three successive days felt reminiscent of the run of games Auburn won to reach the Final Four in 2019, and surely has people thinking they can do it again in 2025.

December

Men’s and women’s basketball continued to dominate in December, as they closed out the year with just one loss each in the final month. With multiple teams in the thick of their seasons and a number of squads eagerly anticipating the start of their campaigns, 2025 is sure to be special.

It will be hard to top 2024, a year that saw history in the form of two national championships, three conference titles, an abundance of program records and countless memories. An outsider may think of it as a lucky year, but Tigers know it was just Auburn being Auburn.