It has been a season full of potential wins without finishes for the Auburn women's basketball team.
Whether it was being cold in the first half, surging back and coming up just short in the second, or playing lights out in the first, and then completely falling apart in the second, the Tigers have left more than a few potential victories out of the win column this season.
On Jan. 12, against then-No.10 South Carolina, Auburn led by as many as 12 in the first half, but saw that lead slowly slip away, as the Gamecocks snuck out of Auburn Arena with a 72-66 win.
In that game, similar to many other games for the Tigers, Auburn's key players had trouble staying on the floor, committing enough fouls to give South Carolina 23 points from the free-throw line.
"That's a lot of points," said Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Fluornoy. "We out rebounded them. We turned them over 20 times. The difference is at the free-throw line."
Just a week later, Auburn would once again mount a double-digit first-half home lead over the No. 10 team in the country, only to see it surmounted.
This time around, it was the Kentucky Wildcats that handed the Tigers the crushing defeat.
Auburn led by as many as 13 against the Wildcats and had a chance for a winning basket on the game's final possession, but was unable to get a shot off before the buzzer.
"It should have never come to that," said senior center Peyton Davis.
That loss was the first in what would become a four-game losing streak that included a 18-point loss to Florida in Gainesville and a 71-54 home loss to Texas A&M.
The Tigers played what was perhaps their worst half of the season in the first 20 minutes against Missouri on Feb. 16, scoring only 14 points and allowing 42.
Led by senior forward Tyrese Tanner, the Tigers made a valiant effort at a comeback that ultimately fell short, losing to Missouri by a final of 68-58.
These what-could-have-been losses have the Tigers two games under .500 in the Southeastern Conference with two games left to go.
But the Tigers rebounded from their close losses on Senior Day, Sunday, Feb. 23, by defeating rival Georgia with solid free-throw shooting and defense down the stretch.
"Defensive always wins games, and we can convert it to our offense," Tanner said. "If we don't play defensively then we can't play offensively. In this game, we really stepped it up with our steals, our press and our forcing them to turn it over. We just attacked the basket and went hard in the second half."
Auburn will now face Alabama, who it beat earlier in the season by a score of 61-39, on Feb. 27, and finish off the season with a trip to Oxford to face Ole Miss, a team that currently boasts a league-worst 1-13 record in conference play.
The Tigers need to win these two games and would likely need to win the SEC Tournament to receive a bid to the Women's NCAA Tournament. If they cannot win the conference tournament, they will probably need a strong showing to make it back to the Women's NIT.
"We've got two more games to win," Williams-Flournoy said. "It started with three with Georgia, now we are down to two. Then we will worry about [the postseason]."
The SEC Tournament will be held in Duluth, Ga., on March 5-9.
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