The Auburn women’s basketball team edged the Vanderbilt Commodores, 78-76, to secure its first winning season since 2019. The Tigers finished the regular season 15-13 and 5-11 in conference play. With the win, Auburn earned a first-round bye in the upcoming SEC Tournament.
“We put our team in a position to play in the postseason,” said head coach Johnnie Harris. “That was our goal going into the game.”
It was Senior Day on the Plains, and Auburn honored seniors Sania Wells and Honesty Scott-Grayson before tip-off. Wells and Scott-Grayson had Auburn’s first points of the game. Wells converted a 3-point play, and Scott-Grayson made a long two.
Wells finished the game with 13 points, going 5-of-9 in the paint and 2-of-5 from behind the arc. Scott-Grayson finished the game with 15 points, six assists, five steals and two game-winning free throws.
“Our seniors came out and set the tone,” Harris said. “I thought they were aggressive offensively and defensively. This is a standard we wanted to set tonight. Sending our seniors out as winners.”
“I’ve been here for so long,” Scott-Grayson said. "For my last game to come out with a win is very important to me. I wouldn’t have done it without my teammates and my coaching staff. So kudos to them.”
The Tigers started off the first quarter playing physical basketball, forcing five turnovers in the first eight minutes of the game. Auburn was able to capitalize on those turnovers, and the Tigers led the Commodores 23-15 at the end of the first quarter, as Vanderbilt finished the quarter with a 5:01 scoring drought.
Despite a strong first quarter, the Tigers were unable to keep the momentum and physicality up during the second quarter. Auburn turned the ball over six times in the quarter and scored just 15 points.
Vanderbilt turned the ball over three times and scored 27 points in the second quarter, largely due to guard Ciaja Harbison’s performance and the team's free-throw shooting. In the second quarter, the Commodores went 10-for-10 from the free-throw line, with Harbison scoring four of her 10 second-quarter points at the foul line. At halftime, the Commodores led the Tigers 42-38.
Free throws were the difference maker in the Tigers’ win.
The Tigers were able to claw back in the second half and held the Commodores to 10 free throws in the third and fourth quarters combined, with the Commodores only making five of them.
The Tigers shot 23 free throws in the second half, compared to four in the first half, and shot 66.7% from the free-throw line for the night. With 4.4 seconds left to play in the fourth quarter and the score tied, Scott-Grayson made a pair of free throws to give the Tigers a two-point lead and secured their 78-76 win.
“(We) played for our fans, and our program, and most importantly (we) played for each other,” Scott-Grayson said. “It was just all a team effort. Going out there and performing and getting the win was all that mattered,”
The Tigers earned the No. 10 seed in the SEC Tournament and will face the No. 7-seed Georgia Bulldogs on Thursday, March 1 in Greenville, S.C. Tip-off is at 5 p.m. CST and will be televised on the SEC Network.
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Grace Heim is a junior from Enterprise, Alabama, majoring in English Literature. She started with The Plainsman in January 2023.
