After Tyrese Tanner scored a career-high 29 points in Auburn's first-round WNIT victory over UAB, it was now Hasina Muhammad's turn.
Muhammad scored a career-high 27 points as the Lady Tigers defeated Western Kentucky 84-66 in their second-round matchup on Sunday in Auburn Arena.
Tanner also backed up her career-high performance with a 24-point, second-round performance.
"We've been telling (Muhammad and Tanner) how good they can be, but now they are starting to realize it themselves," said head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy.
Western Kentucky made a couple early baskets to take a 5-2 lead, but Auburn turned to the full-court press and went on a 28-10 run to take a 30-15 lead with 8:30 left in the half.
Both teams shot the ball well in a fast-paced first half, but the difference was the turnover and offensive rebounding margins that went in Auburn's favor.
Auburn's two leading scorers on the season, Muhammad and Tanner, each had 13 first half points.
The Lady Hilltoppers were lead by Alexis Govan and Bianca McGee, who had 16 and 12 first half points respectively.
However, after their early run, Auburn never looked back and took a 49-38 lead into halftime.
After appearing to have some tired legs from the fast-paced first half, the Lady Tigers picked up right where they left off.
The pressure continued and the WKU turnovers followed, totaling 26 on the game. Auburn had a comfortable 68-48 lead at the under-12 minute media timeout.
"When you have 6'2'', 6'3'' players standing on the front press, it's tough," said WKU head coach Michelle Clark-Heard. "We were ready for it, but we threw it away at times."
The paced slowed a bit from that point on, but the Lady Tigers maintained a lead and coasted to their second-round win over WKU.
There was an evident size advantage favoring Auburn as they scored 44 of their 84 points in the paint and dominated the glass for much of the game. The Lady Tigers also recorded 33 points off of turnovers and had 25 second-chance points.
"We knew we had the advantage over them in our height and our physicality," said senior forward Blanche Alverson. "So we wanted to come in and get a lot of boards early and use that to our advantage. We just wanted to beat them in the paint and put an emphasis on that."
Auburn also received much needed role performances from Chadarryl Clay, who tacked on 10 points off of the bench behind a 4-5 shooting performance. Alverson turned in an impressive all-around performance with nine points, nine rebounds, seven assists and six steals.
"I think it now just really kicked in for us," Tanner said. "I hate that it did in the postseason, but it's good that we are now all getting along and playing well."
Auburn will remain at home and host Tulane on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the third round of the WNIT.
"I think we play really well at home," Alverson said. "I think our crowd fuels us and we're comfortable with our gym. We shoot the ball well and play good defense."
Tulane defeated Arkansas in their second-round matchup 60-48.
Also, Auburn and Tulane played earlier in the season, resulting in a 70-65 Auburn victory.
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