Auburn women’s basketball returned home Sunday afternoon to face off against Arkansas. While the Tigers came in with their hopes of extending their win streak to make it the longest in SEC play since the 2015-16 season, the Razorbacks ended their four-game losing streak with a 54-51 win.
After going down 15 points in the third quarter, Auburn started to come back in the fourth quarter. The Tigers tied the game twice in the fourth quarter, but the comeback fell short after two missed free throws and failing to inbound the ball after an intentional foul by Arkansas with seven seconds left in the game.
"(Jakayla Johnson) wanted it, she said, 'I got it coach,'" said Auburn head coach Johnnie Harris. "I thought the ball was on our side, but it was on the opposite side, and so when we went over there I think that kind of threw the kids off, but still you got to come to the ball."
Auburn continued its trend of shooting below 40% from the field in conference play, now having shot above 40% one time in 10 conference games. The Tigers started the game shooting 6% from the floor in the first quarter and finished shooting 32% in the game.
"We started out flat," Harris said. "Defensively we did what we needed to do to beat them, but we couldn’t make our shots."
Arkansas also struggled on offense, shooting 27% in the game and 13% from three. Despite the shooting struggles, the Razorbacks managed to score 23 of their 54 points from the free-throw line. Free throws hurt Auburn on both ends with the Tigers shooting 52% from the line.
"Free throws killed us," Harris said. "We didn't make our free throws. If you make five more free throws, we missed 13, and you make five of those, not even half you make five of them, it's a different ballgame."
The Tigers turned it over 22 times but only allowed Arkansas to score 12 points off turnovers. Auburn forced 19 turnovers of its own, but failed to capitalize, only scoring eight points from turnovers.
"They had 19 turnovers, but we didn't score off of those," Harris said. "A lot (of Auburn's turnovers) were unforced turnovers, it was us rushing."
Honesty Scott-Grayson led Auburn with 11 points and two steals to go along with it. Kaitlyn Duhon was the leading rebounder for the Tigers with seven in the game.
Erynn Barnum led Arkansas with 14 points and led the game with nine rebounds. Makayla Daniels had 11 points and tallied three steals for the Razorbacks.
Auburn drops to 13-9 on the season and 3-7 against SEC opponents while Arkansas improves to 18-7 this season and 5-5 in conference play.
Auburn is back in action on Thursday when it hosts No. 1 South Carolina . The game is set for a 7 p.m. tip-off and will broadcast on SECN+.
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Chris Mendoza is a senior from Huntsville, Ala. majoring in journalism and minoring in sports coaching. He started with The Plainsman in fall 2022.
Twitter: @chris_mendoza20
