Auburn Advances To SEC Title Game After 78-58 Win Over Tennessee

March 7, 2009

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NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - The top-seeded Auburn women's basketball team (29-2) rallied from a five-point halftime deficit to hand fifth-seeded Tennessee (22-10) its worst loss ever in the SEC Tournament as the Tigers earned a place in the SEC Championship game with a 78-58 win.

The Tigers will take on No. 2 seed Vanderbilt at 6:30 p.m. CT, in the conference championship game. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2 and will be available on XM Radio on channel 199.

Auburn head coach Nell Fortner also earned the 100th win over her career on the Plains along with her first SEC title game appearance. Fortner now owns and 100-55 record as Auburn's head coach and a 117-66 record overall.

The Lady Vols took its largest lead of the game at the end of the first half, going into the locker room with a 31-26 advantage. Auburn returned to the court and went on a 19-2 run to start the second half, eventually out-scoring Tennessee 52-27 in the final 20 minutes of play to take the 20-point victory.

"I thought it was an outstanding effort for us in the second half, and it took us 20 minutes to get our feet under us and figure out the flow of the game, but very proud of the effort in the second half," said Fortner. "We were fully aware that you go through Tennessee to get to a championship, and that's what we had to do tonight. I felt like in the 20 minutes of the second half we understood that and played much better basketball."

With the victory, Auburn defeated Tennessee for the second time this season, following an 82-68 victory on Jan. 25 in front of a sold-out crowd at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum. It marked the first time since the 1986-87 season for Auburn to beat the Lady Vols twice in the same season.

Auburn also earned the distinction of being the first-ever SEC team to defeat Tennessee by double digits twice in the same season and just the fifth overall team ever to do it.

The trip to the championship game is the eighth ever for Auburn, but the first since the Tigers won the tournament in 1997.

"We're excited about it (making the championship game)," said Fortner. "This is the first time we've been in it since this staff has been at Auburn, it's a definite goal this season, so we're excited to have an opportunity to play for a championship."

SEC Player of the Year DeWanna Bonner led Auburn to the win with 26 points and five rebounds, followed by senior point guard Whitney Boddie with 19 points and four assists. Seventeen of Boddie's 19 came in the second half as she led the Auburn comeback.

With Bonner scoring 14 of her points in the first half, Boddie said the team seemed content to let her do the work, but that all changed as the Tigers took the court in the second half.

"Sometimes you have a great player like DeWanna, you can stand around and she can shoot from half court and you don't have to do much," said Boddie. "The girls were in the locker room talking about making plays, and that's what I tried to do, you go backdoor and you can't sit back on your heels and force you to do certain things, but using their aggression against us they were using their aggression against us."

Also scoring in double figures for Auburn was Sherell Hobbs with 16 points. Trevesha Jackson led the team in rebounding with six.

Opening the second half down five points to Tennessee, Auburn went on a 19-2 tear to take a lead it would never give up in the game. Boddie scored six of the 19 points in the stretch as the Auburn defense limited Tennessee to just two field goals in the first eight minutes of the second half.

Auburn continued to build its lead throughout the second half, taking a 20-point advantage for the first time with 3:45 left in the game on a 3-pointer from Hobbs. The Tigers maintained their lead throughout the closing minutes to earn its 29th win of the season.

The 29 victories are the most for Auburn since the 1989-90 season and are the fourth-most all-time at Auburn.

The Tigers pulled out the victory despite being out-rebounded, 45-36, by the larger Tennessee squad. Auburn forced 17 Tennessee turnovers, compared to 15 of its own. The Tigers also tallied six steals and five blocks in the game.

Auburn shot 47.2 percent from the field in the game, knocking down 25-of-53 attempts. The Tigers also hit five of their nine 3-point attempts for 55.6 percent and hit 85.2 percent (23-of-27) of their free throws.

The Lady Vols were limited to 26.3 percent shooting in the second half after hitting 41.2 percent of their shots in the first. Tennessee finished with a 33.3 (24-of-72) shooting percentage in the game, including a 3-of-16 mark from beyond the arc. Tennessee also hit only 63.6 percent of its free throw attempts, connecting on 7-of-11 attempts.

With the victory, Auburn moves on to face No. 2 seed Vanderbilt (23-8) in the championship game. The Commodores defeated the Tigers, 73-70, on Feb. 19 in Nashville. Auburn was down 16 points at the half before rallying back, eventually cutting the lead to one before taking the three-point loss.

For fans that cannot make it to the game live stats will be available on www.SECSports.com. Tiger fans can listen to the game live on WMXA 96.7 FM with play-by-play from Andy Burcham and color commentary from Arnika Edwards. Audio Webcasts will also be available at www.AuburnTigers.com.