Early in the season, defense has been the clear story line for Auburn. The lack of defense, that is.
That changed Sunday night when Auburn defeated St. Joseph’s 62-66, marking the first time all season the Tigers didn’t give up over 80 points.
"We didn’t give up 85 points,” head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said after the game. “Nor 80. Nor 82. Nor 89. It’s something that we’ve been talking about; it’s something that we’ve been working on as well. We switched up a little bit, the starting lineup isn’t conducive to our 1-2-2 so we switched to our 2-2-1. But at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what defense we play; they have to get down and play and they really just made a conscious effort to get out and defend today.”
Through four games in the season, junior Unique Thompson has her fourth double-double. Thompson had 17 points, rebounds and five assists on the night. This is Thompson’s fifth consecutive double-double, dating back to last season in Auburn’s loss to BYU.
While Thompson continued her dominance, it was the freshman Lauren Hansen who led the way for the Tigers. Hansen didn’t play in the season opener against Wofford, but has slowly worked her way back, starting for the first time against UAB then again on Sunday night.
Hansen had 18 points while shooting 6-of-10 and 4-of-6 from 3, a career-high. Hansen was also the team leader in minutes played
“Lauren’s Lauren,” Williams-Flournoy said. “What you saw today is what I’ve seen for a very long time from recruiting her. I still think she’s trying to get back into the rhythm of the game; you can see some of the turnovers that she’s making. But I thought she shot the ball extremely well, she made some really good passes, made some great decisions as the point guard. So I’m very proud of her.”
Hansen wasn’t the only Tiger to have a career-high in points. Kiyae’ White had 12 points along with three rebounds.
“It felt good,” White said. “Coach Flo just told me, ‘Go in and shoot confident’ because I shoot the ball in practice so much but I go in the game and don’t shoot the way I know how to. It was important that I went into the game and contributed to the team tonight and did what I knew I could.”
Auburn prepares for a stretch of three games in three days and will look for everyone to keep contributing.
“Everyone’s gonna be depended on,” Williams-Flournoy said. “Just like I thought they did tonight, everybody that went into the game tonight gave us some type of effort. Whether it was a shot by Natalie inside, Morgan knocking down a shot, you know it's just everybody gave us something and they’re gonna have to continue to do that.”
Williams-Flournoy said the team will have a Thanksgiving dinner Thursday before preparing to take on Middle Tennessee at 10 a.m. CST on Friday in Estero, Florida.
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