Auburn played its third-consecutive game against a Top 25 team on Thursday night when they hosted No. 2 South Carolina. A fast South Carolina start and early offensive struggles by Auburn led to the Gamecocks staying perfect in SEC play with a 77-58 victory.
“You can definitely see why South Carolina is the [No. 2] team in the country,” said head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy. “They’re very good, and they get you at so many positions. They’re tough to guard, and starting out in the first quarter like we did, that doesn’t really help you plan against the [No. 2] team in the country.”
In the first, South Carolina quickly jumped out to a double-digit lead before Auburn was able to find its way onto the scoresheet. The Gamecocks’ Zia Cooke knocked down a trio of 3-pointers in a little less than a minute and a half to help push the South Carolina lead to 13-3 just three minutes into the game.
Buckets were difficult to come by for Auburn in the first quarter, with the Tigers being outscored 26-6. Auburn was 2-of-20 from the field in the first, with the six points coming from an Honesty Scott-Grayson 3-pointer, an Alaina Rice free throw and a Kira Lowery layup.
“That’s probably what was the most disappointing,” Williams-Flournoy said. “In the first quarter here against South Carolina, we didn’t compete like we needed to like we had done in the previous games.”
South Carolina closed the first on a 6-0 run and carried it over to start the second. An 11-0 run led by five different Gamecocks to open the second quarter extended the lead to 37-6 with 7:02 to go in the half.
Auburn reached double-digits with just over five minutes remaining in the first half after Romi Levy scored from beyond the arc. Levy’s performance was one of the few positives for Auburn in the loss.
“It was good for Romi to hit some shots,” Williams-Flournoy said. “She’s been working extremely hard, she’s been coming before practice, after practice, so it was good for her to see some shots go down. That’s going to help us.”
The freshman from Herzliya, Israel, was Auburn’s top scorer in the first half with six points. She made a career-high three 3-pointers and finished the night with nine points, five rebounds in 27 minutes.
Unique Thompson was held to just two points in the first half. Thompson is Auburn’s leading scorer this season but was 1-of-9 from the field in the first half and never reached the free-throw line.
“I talked to Unique at halftime,” Williams-Flournoy said. “I thought Unique got a little frustrated. She’s constantly getting hit down there. She’s not getting the calls that she thinks that she should get, and sometimes that’s taking her out of the game. She’s gotta let it go. You can’t control the officials, you can’t control what they’re calling, and you can’t let those emotions take you out of the game.”
In the fourth quarter, Thompson found a groove on offense scoring seven points in the quarter. She ended the night with 10 points and eight rebounds.
Other than Levy, no Tiger totaled more than three points in the first half, and Auburn trailed 47-18 at the midway mark.
While the first half was all South Carolina, Auburn outscored the Gamecocks 40-30 in the second half. Auburn shot 53% from the field in the second half.
“I thought that they came back in the second half,” Williams-Flournoy said. “I didn’t think we were playing very hard in the first half. I thought we kinda put our heads down, we were getting our butt kicked. I thought that they came back in the second half and played harder. That’s all we want; we just want effort and just want you to play hard.”
The second-half charge was led by Scott-Grayson, who scored 12 of her 15 points in the second half. Sania Wells had a pair of 3-pointers, Thompson scored eight points and Auburn limited itself to three turnovers in the final 20 minutes.
Auburn now turns the page to face Missouri on Sunday, a game that was originally-scheduled for Jan. 10 before COVID-19 issues within the Auburn program caused the game to be postponed.
Tipoff for that game is set for noon CST, with the game airing on SEC Network.
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