The Auburn women's basketball team will move on to the next round of the Southeastern Conference tournament for the first time since 2010.
Thursday night, the Tigers avenged their season closing 73-71 overtime loss to 14-seed Ole Miss with a 70-54 win over the rebels.
"I'm just really proud of my team," said senior guard Tyrese Tanner. "We stayed focused the whole game, stuck to our game plan, and we got the win."
Tanner was the second leading scorer for the Tigers with 16 points, while her sister, Tra'cee Tanner, led the Tigers with 17.
"We emphasized getting the ball inside," Tra'cee said. "That's what we did today, and that's what helped us win the ball game."
In the first half, the Tigers shot 46 percent, good enough to give them one point at the break.
In the second, Auburn shot just 27 percent, but managed to outscore the Rebels by 15.
"I thought we did a better job in the second half getting to the free-throw line," said Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy. "In the first half, we kind of messed up our game plan a little bit."
Williams-Flournoy deferred a question about the difference between this game and the one the tigers lost to her players.
"We attacked the basket a lot more," Tra'cee said. "We finished at the basket."
Tyrese said it was a matter of intensity.
"We just played harder this game," Tanner said. "I thought at Ole Miss we didn't play hard. This game we played both halves hard and we got the win."
The Tanner sisters also said that the team was excited to get another shot at the Rebels.
"We redefined ourselves from how we played Sunday," Tra'cee said. "Today we were a lot more hungry."
Tyrese agreed.
"It was good we got to play Ole Miss again," Tyrese said. "We got show who we really were."
In a quick turnaround, the Tigers will face off against Texas A&M Friday at 7:30 p.m.
"You really try not to focus so much on the other team," Williams-Flournoy said. "You just don't have much time to prepare for it."
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