AUBURN, Ala. – The Auburn women’s basketball team hits the halfway point of SEC play Sunday afternoon when the Tigers host the Florida Gators at Neville Arena. Game time is set for 2 p.m. CT.
It’s the annual We Back Pat game as the team will wear special warmup shirts to honor legendary Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt and highlight awareness for Alzheimer's research.
Auburn (10-10, 1-6 SEC) looks to bounce back after a road loss at Mississippi State Thursday night. Florida (11-9, 2-4) had an open date Thursday; the Gators’ last game was a home loss to No. 5 LSU last Sunday.
Arena doors open at 1 p.m. CT. Tickets are available in advance at AUBTix.com or at the Neville Arena ticket office on gameday.
ON THE AIR
›› Brit Bowen and Larry DiChiara will have the radio call on ESPN 106.7 FM beginning at 1:45 p.m. CT. The broadcast can also be heard on AuburnTigers.com and the Auburn Athletics app.
›› The game can be seen on SEC Network + with Lyn Rollins and Kamera Harris calling the action.
LAST TIME OUT
›› Auburn’s DeYona Gaston had her 10th game of the season with 20-plus points, but a big Mississippi State run in the second quarter led the Bulldogs to a 96-56 win Thursday night at Humphrey Coliseum.
›› Gaston led all scorers with 26 points, but it was not enough to overcome a Bulldog team that shot a season-high 62.3 percent from the floor and also controlled the paint and the boards.
›› Meanwhile, Auburn shot 34.4 percent, a season-low, and was out-rebounded 44-23. State scored 56 of their 96 points in the paint and also knocked down eight 3-pointers.
AN AUBURN WIN WOULD...
›› Give the Tigers three straight over Florida.
›› Push Auburn’s overall record back above .500.
›› Be the Tigers’ seventh win at home this season.
SERIES HISTORY VS. FLORIDA
›› This is the 68th meeting between Auburn and Florida in women’s basketball. The Tigers own a 40-26 advantage in the all-time series that dates back to the 1973-74 season. Auburn is 17-8 against the Gators at home with a 4-4 mark at Neville Arena.
LAST MEETING: March 3, 2024, in Gainesville
Auburn 77, Florida 74
›› Mar’Shaun Bostic put together one of the best all-around games of her career, and Auburn held on in a wild finish for a 77-74 win at Florida on the final day of the regular season.
›› Leading by three with 6.2 seconds to play, Honesty Scott-Grayson missed the second of a two-shot free throw attempt. Florida got the rebound, raced the length of the court and launched a desperation 3-point attempt, but Scott-Grayson blocked the shot from behind as time expired to secure the win.
›› Auburn saw a 10-point lead after three quarters shrink to as few as one in the final minute, but Florida was never able to overtake the Tigers as Auburn was able to overcome a season-high in turnovers and foul trouble up and down the roster.
›› Bostic scored a season-high 18 points and dished out a career-high nine assists to lead the Auburn offensive attack. She was also 8-of-10 at the free throw line. Scott-Grayson overcame second-half foul trouble to finish with 16 points along with five rebounds.
›› Auburn shot a season-best 56.3 percent (27-of-48) with five 3-pointers but also had a season-high 24 turnovers that turned in 28 Florida points. The teams were even on the boards with 31 rebounds apiece. Auburn’s bench came up huge, scoring more than half the Tigers’ points with 42.
SCOUTING THE GATORS
›› Florida is 11-9 overall, 2-4 in SEC play. The Gators have wins over Georgia and Missouri while falling to Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU and Kentucky.
›› The Gators average 77.9 points per game while allowing 67.0. In SEC play, they score 70.3 per game and allow 74.7. Florida ranks 14th nationally in field goal percentage at 47.6%.
›› Freshman guard Liv McGill leads the Gators in scoring with 16.1 points per game, and she is fourth in the SEC with 5.2 assists per contest. Center Ra Shaya Kyle shoots 63.9% from the floor, 3rd in the SEC and 7th nationally.
SCOUTING AUBURN
›› Auburn is 10-10 overall, 1-6 in SEC play. The Tigers have faced four top-25 opponents in their first five SEC games, but are in the midst of three straight against unranked foes.
›› Auburn has held 16 of 19 Division I opponents below their season scoring average. Ten of those opponents have scored more than 10 points below their season average.
›› Graduate student DeYona Gaston is the nation’s ninth-leading scorer and third in the SEC. She leads the Tigers with 21.7 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, ranking in the SEC’s top 10 in both categories. She has 10 games this season with 20 or more points and three with 30-plus. She set a Neville Arena record for an Auburn player with 36 points in the win over VUL, then nearly matched that with 35 points vs. Alabama State. She has five double-doubles so far this season, including a 29-point, 12-rebound performance vs. Norfolk State on Dec. 29. For her efforts against ULL (29 points)and Alabama State, she was named SEC Player of the Week. Gaston also hit a corner 3-pointer with 1.6 seconds left to beat Northern Iowa on Nov. 28; it was just the second 3-pointer of her five-year collegiate career. She added 30 points in the Jan. 2 game vs. Ole Miss, going 14-for-17 at the free throw line. Her 14 made free throws and 17 attempts both tied Auburn program records.
›› Sophomore Taliah Scott, a transfer from Arkansas, made a splash in her Auburn debut, tying the program record for single-game 3-pointers with eight in the Tigers’ win over Little Rock Nov. 14. She scored 26 points in the game along with a career-high 9 rebounds. She followed that up with a 28-point night at Oregon where she knocked down seven 3-pointers. She has missed the last 15 games with an injury suffered at Cal on Nov. 22.
›› Graduate student Taylen Collins averages 8.5 points and 5.3 rebounds so far this season. She recorded her first double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 rebounds in the win over UAB Dec. 8. Collins hit double-digit scoring twice at the Paradise Jam and had 10 rebounds in the win over Pitt, then scored a then-season high 14 in the win at Virginia. She missed two recent games (Alabama State-illness, Norfolk State-injury) but returned to the lineup vs. Ole Miss.
›› Senior Mar’Shaun Bostic has been the Tigers’ starting point guard most of the season, currently ranking fifth in the SEC with 4.9 assists per game. She’s had five or more assists in 13 of 20 games. Her best game so far this season came at Kentucky on Jan. 12 when she scored a season-high 18 points along with 7 assists, then she matched that with another 18-point, 6-assist, 5-steal performance vs. Texas on Jan. 16. One of the fastest players and top defenders in the SEC, she led the Tigers with 1.6 steals per game in 2023-24 and currently leads the team with 2.0 steals per game this year (8th SEC).
›› Senior Celia Sumbane scored a career-high 19 points with 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals vs. VUL. She was then named to the Paradise Jam all-tournament team after averaging 10.2 points in the tournament, including 16 in the final game vs. Kansas. She started the first 18 games, then recorded her first career double-double off the bench with 13 points and 11 rebounds vs. Missouri on Jan. 19.
›› Sophomore Audia Young opened the season with a bang, scoring a career-high 11 points on 3-4 3FG along with four steals vs. SIU. She then set another career high vs. VUL with 18 points, 4 assists and 5 steals. She hit double-digits a third time with 11 points in the win over Pitt, which included three 3-pointers. Young set a new career high at LSU with 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting, including 4-of-5 from 3-point range.
›› True freshmen Jordan Hunter and Syriah Daniels - two of the top high school players in Alabama a year ago - saw their first collegiate action vs. SIU. Hunter had 6 assists and 4 rebounds off the bench in the opener, then went 7-for-7 from the field for 15 points along with 6 assists vs. VUL. Daniels had 12 points and 4 steals in the VUL win, then scored a career-high 14 points in her first career start to help the Tigers come from behind to beat UAB Dec. 8.
›› Junior Oyindamola Akinbolawa has made 10 starts in the post, averaging 4.1 points and 4.3 rebounds per game. She played her best career game vs. Northern Iowa at the Paradise Jam, finishing with 7 points and 10 rebounds, including her first career 3-pointer. She then scored a career-high 10 points at UL-Lafayette Dec. 18 and just missed her first career double-double with nine rebounds.
›› Sophomore Yakiya Milton returned from injury Dec. 21 vs. Alabama State with six points and six rebounds in the Tigers’ win. She then moved into the starting lineup vs. Norfolk State.
›› Freshmen Yuting Deng and Julia Geis have joined the program for the spring semester. Deng signed in November, arrived from China on Jan. 11, and played for the first time against Texas. She then shared the team lead with 13 points in the win over Missouri Jan. 19. Geis joined the program in late December as a walk-on and has dressed for the last five games.
UP NEXT
›› Auburn has an open date Thursday before opening February with a trip to Columbia, S.C., to take on the No. 2 South Carolina Gamecocks. Game time is 11 a.m. CT at Colonial Life Arena with the broadcast on SEC Network.