The Auburn Women's Basketball team (13-15, 4-11 SEC) rallied to cut an 11-point deficit to single digits in the second half, but it wasn't enough in the end as the Tigers fell to the Ole Miss Rebels (16-12, 7-8) Thursday night, 65-61, at Tad-Smith Coliseum in Oxford, Miss. Senior forward Jordan Greenleaf and junior guard Alli Smalley led Auburn as both players scored 16 points. Freshman guard Morgan Toles added 10 points and five assists.
The Rebels began the second half on a 9-2 run and pushed the lead to double digits in the final minutes. Auburn went to work and used an 8-0 run, capped by Smalley's 3-pointer with 39 seconds remaining, to cut the lead to three.
However, that's as close as the Tigers would get as they were forced to foul after Ole Miss' Elizabeth Robertson grabbed an offensive rebound and gave the ball up to junior Kayla Melson with two seconds left in the contest.
Melson hit 1-of-2 free throws to seal the game for the Rebels.
"I thought we had a good chance down the stretch," said Auburn head coach Nell Fortner in a press release. "We did some nice things in the second half, but it came down to the free throw line." Auburn went 6-of-11 from the free throw line while Ole Miss converted on 19-of-21 free throws.
While Auburn struggled to convert from the charity stripe, Fortner said the team's inability to rebound also contributed to the loss. Ole Miss out-rebounded the Tigers, 43-31.
"The offensive rebounds were the total difference in the game," Fortner said. "We did not do a good job of closing out and not allowing those second-chance shots."
Freshman guard Morgan Toles said the Tigers' rebounding woes were a result of being out of position.
"We switched all the screens and (the switching) kind of disrupted them for a while," Toles said. "When we did switch screens, it was kind of hard to recover back and get position for box outs."
Ole Miss was led by SEC scoring leader Bianca Thomas, who scored a game-high 22 points. Robertson chipped in with 11 points.
Sophomore forward Chantel Hilliard said the Tigers had difficulty containing the Rebels' balanced offensive attack, particularly Thomas.
"We knew what we had to do to stop their leading scorer, Bianca Thomas,"
Hilliard said. "Everything else just came into place."
Ole Miss gained the early momentum as the Rebels grabbed a first-half lead and stretched the advantage to 11 with 4:30 remaining in the half.
The Tigers answered with a 10-2 run to close the first half and trailed 31-28 at the break.
Auburn will host Kentucky Sunday at 2 p.m. to close out the regular season.
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