The Auburn Tigers were in dominating fashion Wednesday night against Louisiana-Monroe.
Janiah McKay led the way again for the Tigers scoring 21 points, and the suffocating Auburn defense forced ULM to commit 35 turnovers.
The Tigers (4-3) bounced back after a two-game skid, defeating Louisiana-Monroe (2-3) 67-41. The Tigers shot poorly until the second half, when they shot 45.8 percent compared to 36.8 in the first.
McKay shot 7-of-12 from the field with 21 points and was the only Tiger to shoot over 25 percent from behind the arc. Daisa Alexander also contributed 16 points and four assists to go along with McKay’s performance.
“We knew that this was a game that we really wanted to get our defense going right away,” Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said following the win.
ULM started out red hot, making its first six shots and taking a commanding 15-4 lead. The Tigers defense cooled them down, and Auburn ended the quarter on a 10-0 run to bring the game within one.
“We went down, but once we were able to pick up our defense, we were able to turn them over and take those turnovers into points,” Coach Flo said.
The Tigers smothered the Warhawks in the second quarter, forcing 20 turnovers and going on a 31-4 run by the time first half buzzer went off.
“We had 18 fast-break points tonight and 31 points off of those turnovers,” Williams-Flournoy said. “That’s really what we want, we don’t want to turn the ball back over, we actually want to score.”
Auburn struggled offensively in recent games, but the Tigers are slowly improving, shooting a respectable 40 percent from the field.
“It’s not the offense, it’s the execution of the offense,” Williams-Flournoy said. “It’s the execution of the offense, we had to actually slow down a little bit. We were running too fast, we weren’t setting good screens, we were moving too fast coming off of screens, weren’t making good reads of the defense. We were pretty much just running around out there.”
The Tigers struggles from deep did continue Wednesday, shooting 14.3 percent from three.
“We shot too many, 21 3’s is way too many, especially when we are pushing in transition,” Williams-Flournoy said. “You don’t have to stand out there at three-point line, you can actually make a cut to the basket and get a layup.”
The Tigers next matchup takes them on the road Sunday, Dec. 3 to take on Indiana.
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