Auburn women’s basketball wins first SEC Tournament game since 2020, followed by LSU
Jamya Mingo-Young, a fifth-year player with the Auburn Tigers, said she and her teammates were “shaken up at halftime” even though they trailed by six points over Arkansas.
Meanwhile, Auburn head coach Johnny Harris has made things a little smoother. “I just told them they weren’t playing hard,” Harris said of his halftime message. “We just played a little bit because we didn’t play smart and didn’t stick to our game plan.”
Harris’ message was delivered, but not by Auburn, which outscored Arkansas by 13 points in the second half and won 67-48 in the second round of the SEC Tournament in Greenville, South Carolina, on Thursday night. Ta.
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For the Tigers, Thursday night’s win was more than revenge for February. The Razorbacks finished fourth in the regular season, but it gave Auburn its first SEC Tournament win since 2020 and the program’s 20th win of the season.
And the Tigers essentially did it without their leading scorer, fifth-year senior guard Hochesty Scott Grayson. Scott Grayson, who was named first-team All-SEC on Tuesday, enters the game averaging over 18 points per game, including 27 points against Arkansas in February.
But the Razorbacks took Scott Grayson’s number Thursday night and held her to just six points on 3-of-11 shooting. Scott Grayson’s offensive production on Thursday was his second lowest all season.
“Rather than playing like Honesty, you can do it offensively with Honesty… If we score and she’s just playing, she’s fine,” Harris said of Scott-Grayson. “If she were to take over, she definitely would.»
Fortunately for Auburn, Scott Grayson didn’t have to cause any problems for himself, as the Tigers’ bench scored 31 points in the win. The Tigers’ offense was led by fifth-year senior guard Jamya Mingo-Young, sophomore Sydney Shaw and junior Marshawn Bostic.
The trio of guards each scored 11 points, and Mingo Yong contributed to the win with eight rebounds and eight assists, moving him close to a triple-double. But, as the Johnny Harris-coached team looked like, Auburn’s defense outplayed its offense.
The Tigers forced 11 turnovers on Arkansas by halftime. By the time the final whistle blew, the number of turnovers had increased to 16.
And of those 16 forced turnovers, Auburn scored 19 points. Meanwhile, the University of Arkansas only allowed nine points due to turnovers.
“That’s a non-negotiable,” Harris said of the team sticking to its defensive style. “They don’t have a choice. They either defend, you play as we tell you, or you don’t play. They have no choice and it seems to work out. »
Thursday’s win advances the Tigers to the tournament quarterfinals, where they will face a familiar foe, the LSU Tigers.
Auburn and LSU have already met twice this season, with one matchup ending in a win for Auburn and the other matchup ending in a win for LSU. “I’ll tell you, the game plan is pretty much the same,” Harris said of Friday’s game against LSU. “We’ll tweak a few things, but the game plan is pretty much the same. It works fine. However, you will need to make some adjustments. The way we play is who we are…We need to play smarter than we are today. But that helped us keep the ball in play, that’s the plan.
Auburn will play the defending national champion LSU Tigers on Friday at 5 p.m. in a game that will be televised on the SEC Network.
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