Eric Starling/Auburn Daily
Shorthanded Tigers Overcome Adversity to Win Second Consecutive Conference Game
Building on-court chemistry is a difficult feat to task any group of college athletes to accomplish; some teams spend years on end working together and never achieve a dynamic sufficient enough to run the table in their respective sport. For second-year head coach Johnnie Harris and the Auburn basketball team, developing chemistry has been nearly impossible due to an unprecedented strand of unfortunate injuries and illnesses.
First it was the injury to freshman forward Kharyssa Richardson, then there was the combination of injury-induced absences from star guards Honesty Scott-Grayson and Aicha Coulibaly; all the while, junior forward Romi Levy has been on limited minutes after suffering a torn ACL just a year ago.
Thursday night's contest with the struggling Kentucky Wildcats was no different; Levy missed yet another game due to a non-disclosed injury, effectively forcing the Tigers to go back to the drawing board yet again in terms of rotations.
Harris and company did not bat an eye, pulling off the program's first road SEC victory since Feb. 27 2020 by a tally of 71-68.
Per usual, Coulibaly and Scott-Grayson took the liberty of stepping up on the offensive end of the floor in the early going, leading the Auburn charge and effectively keeping the Tigers locked into a back-and forth game; the guard duo posted a 17 of their squad's 38 points in the first 20 minutes and keeping the Wildcat offense honest, forcing a total of four steals.
Senior guard Sania Wells was not going to pass up the opportunity to get her buckets, either. As has become her schtick, Wells quietly contributed an additional eight points, willing her way to the line and sinking the pair.
Despite going down by as many as six, the Tigers mounted an 11-0 run in the late second quarter and brought themselves within a triple going into the half.
The orange and blue offensive scheme was far from done putting in work.
After returning to the floor following the halftime intermission, Harris' group went straight to work, quickly jumping back out in front of its opponent and keeping its foot firmly on the gas, outscoring the Cats 21-15 in the third quarter alone and entering the final 10 minutes of regulation up 9.
Much to the displeasure of coach J, the Tigers found themselves in nothing short of a rock fight in the fourth quarter which featured Kentucky storming all the way back; Auburn narrowly fended off the Wildcat attack in the midst of a forgettable late-game shooting display.
Auburn now has just three days to get back to practice and tend to its wounds before returning to competition when the Florida Gators come to Neville Arena for a Monday night conference showdown on the Plains at 6 p.m. CT on SEC Network and the Auburn Sports Network.
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