Having only eight scholarship players available and a poor shooting performance in the first half made things difficult for Auburn in Sunday's matchup with Florida. The Tigers lost 68-54 and remain winless in SEC play.
This past week saw two of Auburn’s games postponed due to COVID-19 concerns, so Sunday's game in Gainesville was the Tigers first in ten days.
The rust seemed to show in the first half as Auburn was 7-for-36 from the field.
“We had good shots.” said Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy. “I told them at halftime they were good shots, we just have to step up and knock them down.”
Heading into halftime, the Tigers were down 35-21.
The second half began better than the first as Auburn went on an 8-0 run to start the second half cutting the lead to six points. That was the closest the Tigers got to the lead, though.
Auburn may have forced 12 turnovers and won the overall rebounding battle, but the Gators held on to their second-half lead. Even with a better second half and the offense generating great looks at the basket, Auburn shot only 27.9% from the field, a season-low.
“We kept fighting,” Williams-Flournoy said. “They kept fighting, they kept playing hard. And that’s all we asked them to do, was to get out and compete.”
Auburn forward Unique Thompson played for the first time in almost a month. It seems that her break had little effect, as she dropped yet another double-double, her eighth of the season. She finished the game with 14 points and a team-leading 14 rebounds.
Auburn will look to notch its first SEC win of the season in Auburn Arena this Thursday against No. 12 Kentucky. The game is a make-up game from last week and will tipoff at 7:30 p.m. CST.
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Dylan Fox, Junior in Civil Site Design Engineering, joined The Plainsman as a sports writer in Spring 2020. From Geneva, IL.
