AUBURN, Ala. – Auburn jumped out to a big early lead and had another strong offensive performance Friday night in an 80-59 win over Nicholls State in the first round of the Preseason Women's NIT.
The Tigers (2-0) will travel to Albuquerque, N.M., to face New Mexico in the WNIT quarterfinals at 3 p.m. CT Sunday. It will be the second all-time meeting between the schools and mark Auburn's first game at The Pit.
It was Auburn's second-straight game scoring at least 80 points; the Tigers scored 80 or more just twice all of last season. Despite a cold fourth quarter, Auburn shot 45.1% from the field and made 12-of-13 free throws.
"It's always very good when you open up the season 2-0," Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. "I thought we played extremely well. Two very good quarters. The first and the third quarter we played extremely well. We scored the basketball. We had 80 points and we probably left about 20 out there on the floor if we could make a few more layups."
Daisa Alexander led Auburn with 20 points while also racking up five rebounds and two steals. Emari Jones added 15 points and pulled down 8 rebounds for the second straight game along with three assists and two steals. Janiah McKay finished with 14 points and seven assists. And Unique Thompson scored six points and pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds to go along with four steals and two blocks while playing just 24 minutes.
"Really, (it's about) just putting people on the floor that can score," Williams-Flournoy said. "That sounds really easy, but we haven't done that before. We can put five, six, seven (on the court) and score. We can score in a variety of ways. We've got 3-point shooters. We've got inside presence. We've got drivers. We've got a variety of ways that we can score the basketball."
Auburn jumped out to a 9-0 lead in the first two minutes and had another 9-0 run in the first quarter to take a 23-10 lead after 10 minutes. Nicholls took advantage of an Auburn cold stretch in the second to cut the lead to as few as seven points, but the Tigers took a 37-26 lead to the break.
The Tigers pulled away in the third quarter and increased their lead to as many as 29 in the fourth before a cold stretch late saw the final margin trimmed to 21.
The Tigers took full advantage of being several inches taller at most every position, out-rebounding the Colonels 42-28 and racking up five blocked shots. Auburn also had 18 steals in forcing 24 Nicholls turnovers, turning those into 29 points.
Nicholls' Cassidy Barrios, the defending Southland Conference Player of the Year, shared the game lead in scoring with 20 points and pulled down 11 rebounds for her first double-double of the year.
Auburn advances in WNIT with 80-59 win over Nicholls
