In the first round of the SEC Tournament in Greenville, South Carolina, the Tigers could not overcome an 18-point deficit in the third quarter, ending their season on a 69-62 loss to Florida. They finish the season 5-19 overall, and without a win in the SEC.
After coming into the second half down by only one point, the Gators went on a 19-2 run over the first eight minutes. Auburn was unable to convert on its own end, missing 11-straight from the field to start the third. Until the 2:25 minute mark, a layup from Honesty Scott-Grayson was the only basket the Tigers converted.
“[The message was] to just keep our heads up,” Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said of the third-quarter deficit. “And let our defense dictate what we do next. And we did. The threes by number 10 [UF’s Danielle Rainey] really hurt us. That was the dagger. We were making a run at that point.”
Although the Tigers were able to go on a 12-0 run to end the quarter, the deficit proved to be too much at the end.
Sophomore Alaina Rice led the Tigers in scoring, finishing with a season-high 15 points. Grayson, who suffered a minor head injury in a scrum for a loose ball in the first quarter, finished 5-for-18 on the day with 12 points.
Senior Unique Thompson played in her final game in an Auburn uniform. She finished the game with a double-double, the 58th of her career. She earned the school rebound record in February, totaling 1,156 career boards after Wednesday. Flournoy, despite the tough loss, glowed when asked about Thompson.
“She’s been amazing,” Flournoy said of Thompson. “She's been an amazing player for four years. You've seen her development from freshman year to senior year. She's going in the record books, a record that's going to be a very long time before it's broken. She's going to go down as one of the best players to have played in an Auburn jersey."
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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.
