Auburn just couldn’t get over the hump on Wednesday. Despite closing the gap multiple times late, time ran out on the Tigers’ comeback attempts as they fell to Little Rock 57-49 from Jack Stephens Center in Arkansas.
"Little Rock is a good ball club, but I thought our issues today was, us," Harris said. "It was a total lack of focus a total lack of effort."
It was a homecoming for the Arkansas-native and Auburn head coach Johnnie Harris, who began her coaching career at Little Rock as an assistant in 1999.
Unlike their previous game against Georgia Tech, the Tigers got off to a slow start against the Trojans. Little Rock took a 4-3 lead just over a minute into the game and never trailed again.
"Maybe we came back from Georgia Tech thinking we were good all of the sudden," Harris said. "I told them 'We still have work to do.' You can play well, but you still have to build on that and I didn't think we took advantage and build on a good game on Sunday."
While Auburn held Georgia Tech to 16 first-half points on Sunday, it was a different story against Little Rock. The Trojans finished the first quarter with 17 points and shot 40% from the field in the first half.
"I thought it was a lack of focus," Harris said. "We let them catch the ball where they wanted to catch the ball. No denial, no ball pressure, so it was just a lack of discipline and lack of focus."
That number only increased as the day continued as the Trojans finished the day with a shooting percentage of 46%.
While the Little Rock lead extended itself, Auburn’s best player on offense sat on the bench. Honesty Scott-Grayson, who led the team in points per game coming into the contest, played just eight minutes in the first half after committing two early fouls.
Instead, it was Sania Wells who was the leading scorer in the first half for Auburn, tallying eight points in the first 20 minutes. It was a shooting performance that the Tigers are looking to forget, recording less than 50 points for the second time this season.
Auburn is 0-2 when scoring under 50 points.
The season-low of points came earlier this month against Old Dominion, when the Tigers fell 57-44 on Nov. 14. Wednesday’s game was in a similar fashion, where a poor shooting percentage never gave the Tigers much of a chance.
Auburn was 19-for-59 from the field, a 32.2% performance. It included a 2-for-15 mark from 3-point range, where Auburn’s only made 3s were at the beginning of the first and second quarter. The Tigers finished the day out 0-for-10 from downtown.
It’s the second-worst shooting percentage of the season, trailing only the Old Dominion game.
The Tigers closed the gap slightly before halftime, as Little Rock had extended its lead to as much as nine in the first half. A 6-0 run by Auburn cut the nine-point deficit to three at the midway point.
Momentum looked as if it might carry over into the second half for Auburn when it scored first to bring the Trojans' lead to just one point. That was not the case, as Little Rock responded by going on a 10-2 run while chewing up nearly five minutes of clock.
That happened often. Anytime Auburn brought the deficit within striking distance, Little Rock answered by pushing the lead out again, diminishing hopes of a comeback each time.
"We shared the ball at Georgia Tech," Harris said. "Here today, we didn't share the ball well. We didn't make the extra pass. We missed some tough layups, we'll go back and focus on those things."
It seemed only fitting that Little Rock closed the game out by doing the same thing. After Auburn brought the deficit to three with less than three minutes to go, the Trojans shut down the final comeback threat with a run of their own.
Little Rock closed the game on an 8-1 run to move to 4-1 on the season and send Auburn home with a losing record at 2-3.
Auburn is back in Auburn Arena on Friday, Nov. 26, to face Charleston Southern at noon CST. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network-plus.
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Originally from Helena, Ala., Caleb Jones is a senior studying journalism at Auburn University. He has been on staff with The Plainsman since 2019.
You can follow him here on Twitter: @calebjsports
