Auburn was swept out of Auburn Arena with a 26-point loss on Monday night.
After a double-digit win over Alabama, the Tigers returned home to an 85-59 loss to No. 7 Mississippi State. Behind the leading scoring team in the conference, the Bulldogs moved quickly against the Auburn defense.
“Mississippi State is a very good team, there’s a reason that they are No. 6 in the country,” said Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy. “I thought that we did a very good job [in the first half], we were only down by 10 at the half. It's just a very tough game to continue to play that way.”
Behind 20 turnovers and 20 fast-break points, Auburn posted three players in double-digit scoring: Daisa Alexander, Brooke Moore and Crystal Primm. Alexander led the Tigers with 18 while Primm added 14 with a game-high seven steals.
Despite the defensive effort, Mississippi State's 6-foot-7 center Teaira McCowan would continue with her double-double streak with a game-high 22 points and 10 rebounds.
“I think the game just came down to defense,” Primm said. “In the second quarter, when we went on our runs. We had a lot of energy on defense and we were making our rotations the way that we were supposed to."
Both teams came out playing physically, combining for 42 fouls. Williams-Flournoy added that having Unique Thompson on the bench early with foul trouble "hurt [Auburn's] defense a lot."
These fouls led to Mississippi State scoring 23 points off of 30 trips to the line.
“After the game I told my team to just let it go,” Williams-Flournoy said. “Mississippi State is a very good team. We have to learn from this game and move on.”
Following the home loss, the Tigers (14-3, 2-2) will take a trip to Nashville and square off against Vanderbilt (5-12, 0-4) on Thursday at 7 p.m.
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