AUBURN, Ala. – Freshman Brooke Moore scored a career-high 23 points, and the Auburn women's basketball team pulled away early and cruised to an 83-50 victory over Alabama State to close out non-conference play Saturday at Auburn Arena.
The Tigers (12-1), who entered Saturday's game at No. 20 in the latest NCAA RPI with a pair of top-50 wins, will enter SEC play on a nine-game winning streak, their longest since 2012-13. Auburn also finished off a perfect month of December for the second straight season.
"We were extremely rusty," Auburn head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. "We scored 83 points, and three of our leading scorers don't even get into double figures. It's that game after Christmas – either the game before Christmas or the game after Christmas, one of them is going to look bad. But it's good to get it out of our system now before we begin SEC play.
"Today was a great opportunity for our freshmen to get some playing time, execute a little bit, learn the defense a little bit more. It's different from doing it in practice; it's much better when you're able to do it at game speed."
Despite shooting a season-low 31.4 percent from the field, the Tigers hit 10 3-pointers and found other ways to score, going 29-of-36 (80.6%) at the free-throw line. It marked the most free throws made in a game by Auburn since 2008.
"It's something that we work on every single day," Williams-Flournoy said of the Tigers' free-throw shooting. "We made our goal extremely high; our goal is to shoot 80 percent a game, which is tough. But we're striving for excellence, and so we wanted to make the goal extremely tough."
Moore's 23 points – the most by an Auburn player this season – came on five 3-point field goals, one two-pointer and six free throws. Crystal Primm added 12 points, and Robyn Benton scored 11 off the bench. Unique Thompson pulled down a team-leading eight rebounds despite playing just 20 minutes. Freshman Erin Howard tied a career-high with seven rebounds for the second straight game.
Auburn scored 34 points off 24 Alabama State turnovers and got 49 points from the bench, which played its most minutes of the season. The Tigers out-rebounded ASU 42-38 and had 17 steals – three apiece from Thompson, Primm and Erica Sanders.
For the second straight game, Auburn never trailed. The Tigers jumped out to a quick 8-0 lead and led 13-5 at the end of one quarter. That turned into a 37-20 halftime lead after a half-court heave from Moore beat the buzzer.
Auburn would outscore the Hornets 22-9 in the third quarter to take a 59-29 lead to the final period. The Tigers would then empty the bench in the fourth, getting double-digit minutes from six of seven bench players.
Shmya Ward led Alabama State with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Ayana Emmanuel added 10.
Auburn begins Southeastern Conference play next Thursday, Jan. 3, as the Tigers host No. 10 Tennessee at 6 p.m. CT. Tickets are available at AUBTix.com.
Auburn downs Alabama State 83-50 for ninth straight win
