Auburn fell to No. 6 South Carolina 60-41 in what was the lowest scoring performance for the Gamecocks this season.
A 71-percent fourth quarter kept the Tigers (15-10, 5-6 SEC) from a season-low shooting percent, but the poor shooting display in the first three quarters held Auburn from victory.
“We did as well as we could defensively,” Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said as South Carolina (21-2, 11-1 SEC) scored 34 of their 60 points in the paint.
The Tigers would allow 56.8 percent shooting from the field from the Gamecocks, a season-high from an Auburn opponent.
Post players for Carolina ran the show as A’ja Wilson scored a team-high 17 points, Alaina Coates had 16.
“They’re huge inside. There’s not a lot you’re going to do with that. But a lot of times [offensively] we started to rush. We didn’t run the offense, we didn’t come off screens, we were just running as fast as we could instead of setting our defender up so our shooters could be open.”
Trailing by just five after the first quarter, 14-9, Auburn shot 25 percent through 10 minutes. In the second period, the Tigers remained cold as they shot 2-of-12 and trailed 29-16 going into halftime.
The Gamecocks got things started in the third quarter by making their first six shots, extending their lead to 43-21 following a 14-5 run. Carolina held the largest lead of the night of 25 points, but were outscored 16-11 in the fourth to cut the final deficit below 20.
Freshman Tyra Johnson scored a career-high 10 points with a pair of 3-pointers in addition to a career-most 19 minutes of play. She joined Katie Frerking who scored a game-high 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting, 2-of-3 from 3-point range. Of the 14 field goals made by Auburn, seven of them were 3-pointers. The bench added on 19 with
Tiffany Lewis and Emari Jones scoring five and four, respectively.
The Tigers return home to host Georgia on Sunday at 2 p.m. CST for the annual “Play4Kay” Pink Game, where fans are encouraged to wear pink.
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