With just six games left in the regular season, the Auburn women’s basketball team knows what lies ahead of them. After a home win against Mississippi State on Feb. 9, the Tigers are entering the final stretch of the season with a 13-10 overall record.
With a 4-6 mark in the Southeastern Conference, Auburn holds the ninth spot in the latest league standings.
Auburn will play three of their last six games at home, and senior guard Tyrese Tanner said the team knows they need to finish strong.
“Our practices leading up to the games, we have to be really focused,” Tanner said. “If we have bad practices, we have bad games, but if we have good practice then we have good games.“
The Tigers are currently on a two-game winning streak that started when the team snapped a four-game losing streak at Arkansas on Feb. 9.
“Now we’re about to make a run,” Tanner said.
For that run to happen, Tanner will have to be at the top of her game, because, for the most part, as goes Tanner, so go the Tigers.
“She is their leader,” said Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy. “They feel comfortable when Tyrese is playing well.”
In both games of the Tigers’ current winning streak, Tanner has been the team’s leading scorer, putting up 13 points against Arkansas and 21 against Mississippi State.
According to Williams-Flournoy, Tanner’s leadership isn’t just limited to the offensive side of the ball.
“When she does score, it makes everyone else feel even better on the defensive end,” Williams-Flournoy said.
Defense, Williams-Flournoy said, is what it’s going to take to make that down-the-stretch run the Tigers need.
“We have to realize that it’s our defense that’s going to win games for us,” Williams-Flournoy said. “When the ball leaves your hand [to take a shot] it’s 50-50, but defense is nothing but effort and heart.”
The last two games, Auburn has held their opponents to under 50 points, after allowing over 70 in each game of the four-game skid, including the highest point total the Tigers have allowed all season, 87, in an 18-point loss to Florida in Gainesville.
“Our team philosophy is defense, we get a lot of energy off the defense,” said junior Hasina Muhammad. “Once we get one steal, we just got to get another. Obviously it’s a lot easier to score in transition rather than setting up a play.”
Williams-Flournoy reiterated the importance of the Tigers’ ability to create turnovers.
“That’s what we do. That’s the way our press is designed,” Williams-Flournoy said. “We want to cause havoc; we want to make the game as ugly as possible.”
The Mississippi State win was the first home SEC victory for Auburn, and they are hoping to build on that as the season comes to a close and the SEC Tournament nears.
“We knew we needed to win to win at home to feel better there,” Williams-Flournoy said. “We also needed to win for SEC standings.”
Williams-Flournoy added that this late in the season, it doesn’t matter what other teams in the league are doing.
“We have to understand where we are,” Williams-Flournoy said. “It’s not so much what everyone else does at this point. It’s all about what Auburn does, and we need to continue to do well.”
Auburn’s last game before the start of the SEC tournament will be against Ole Miss, who currently holds a 1-10 record in SEC play. The SEC Tournament will be from March 5-9, with games being played in the Arena at the Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Ga.
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