Jan. 6, 2011
Coach Fortner Post-Game Press Conference
AUBURN - Junior Chantel Hilliard scored a career-high 17 points, leading the Auburn women's basketball team (9-6, 2-0 SEC) to its fifth consecutive win and a 73-56 Southeastern Conference victory over Florida (11-5, 1-1 SEC). Hilliard scored 11 of her 17 points in the second half to lead the Tigers to the win.
"I'm really pleased with the win, I thought we just played a really nice solid second half," said Auburn head coach Nell Fortner. "We came out and just had a better offensive flow against their defenses and got rolling. The first half, we turned the ball over way too many times to get into any kind of an offensive flow. We took better care of the ball and knocked down some nice shots."
Hilliard led a pack of four Tigers scoring in double figures, marking just the fourth time this season for Auburn to have four players in double figures. Sophomore Blanche Alverson was right behind her with 15, followed by Jordan Greenelaf with 11 and Alli Smalley with 10.
"There's no question this is the best game I've seen Chantel Hilliard play since she's been at Auburn," said Fortner. "She is capable of that night-in and night-out. She's a tremendous athlete and she was just very focused tonight and just had some really nice plays."
Sophomore Morgan Toles, the SEC's assist and assist-to-turnover ratio leader, dished out a game-high seven assists on just three turnovers along with her game-high seven rebounds.
Auburn also used its defense to get the win, scoring 24 points on the Gators' 17 turnovers. It marked the seventh time this season for Auburn to score at least 20 points off turnovers. The Tigers tallied nine steals in the game with Alverson and Greenleaf snagging two each.
Thanks to 10 first-half turnovers, Auburn trailed by five, 33-28, at halftime. Alverson was the lone Tiger able to get something going in the half, scoring 13 of her 15 points in the opening period.
"Florida was changing up their defense in the first half, they were man, zone, man, zone, and it throws a point guard off," said Fortner. "You can't get into a rhythm. We were trying to call things and match to their defense, and we have a couple of things we can run, it doesn't matter what you're playing. We just need to do a better job of just worrying about our own offense and not worrying about the defense so much."
Auburn was able to put something together in the second half, taking its first lead of the half just over five minutes in on a Greenleaf jumper. Florida re-gained the lead on the next possession as Jennifer George got open on the blocks for a layup, but it would be the Gators' last lead as the Tigers took off from there.
The Tigers scored the next six points to take a lead they would never give up. Auburn, however, was not able to pull away until Smalley and freshman Tyrese Tanner hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give Auburn a 10-point lead with 6:03 left in the game.
Auburn hit 10-of-12 free throws in the final five minutes to hold off the Gators, eventually taking the 17-point, 73-56, win.
The Tigers shot 50.0 percent from the field and 62.5 percent from 3-point range. Auburn also stepped up at the line, hitting 18-of-24 for 75.0 percent, including a 7-of-8 outing from Hilliard.
Florida was led by George with 10 points, followed by Jaterra Bonds with nine points and Jordan Jones with eight. Azania Stewart scored seven points with a team-high five rebounds.
The Gators lost despite shooting 41.5 percent from the field and 45.5 percent from 3-point range. Florida hit 70.0 percent of its free throws, but lost the rebounding battle, 34-25.
"Winning is big. In this conference you need to win when you can and then go steal a few," said Fortner. "Being 2-0 hopefully gives us the confidence to go on the road to Vanderbilt on Sunday and see what we can do."
Auburn will return to action at 2 p.m., Sunday at Vanderbilt (10-5, 1-1 SEC). The Commodores defeated Mississippi State, 65-44, on Thursday.
Follow Auburn women's basketball on Twitter at twitter.com/AuburnWBB.