On Friday, Auburn lost to Cal 63-59 late to fall to 3-2 on the early season behind a plethora of offensive mistakes.
Looking to bounce back after a tough two-point loss two days ago against Oregon, Coach Harris looked to get her team back on the right track against the Cal Golden Bears. The Auburn Tigers, however, could not bounce back, as they went 0-2 on their west coast trip.
Auburn started off hot on the offensive end, putting pressure on Cal’s defense with Taliah Scott opening scoring with a transition three. Cal’s offense responded early, taking the lead multiple times, and making the Auburn defense look lost. Cal hit back-to-back threes to go up 9-7, a rare sight for a Coach Harris-led team.
Cal had all the momentum heading into the first media timeout, leading 16-11, even with Auburn having five early offensive rebounds. Cal would continue their momentum out of the timeout, causing two uncharacteristic Auburn turnovers, turning that defense into offense. This quick offense by Cal allowed them to go on a fast 7-0 run to lead the Tigers 23-13.
Even more bad news for the team as one of the best players in this early season, Taliah Scott, left the court late in the first quarter in obvious pain as she was grabbing at her hand that she injured over the past offseason.
The second quarter was a totally different story for this resilient Auburn team. Even with their arguable best offensive scorer in Scott off the court, Auburn went on a six-point run to start the second quarter, bringing it to a four-point game down 23-19. Auburn started to get it done on the other side of the court too, forcing five straight turnovers, holding Cal scoreless in the first five minutes of the second quarter. This great defensive play continued, holding a hot-starting Cal team to two points through 7:19 minutes played in the second quarter, allowing Auburn to tie it up at 25.
Auburn only trailed Cal by three at half, down 33-30. After forcing 10 second quarter turnovers and grabbing 11 total offensive rebounds in the first half, the Tigers were right back in the game after looking like Cal might run away with it after one quarter. At the half, Celia Sumbane led the Tiger’s scoring with six points coming off the bench, but Auburn looked to stop Cal’s Ioann Krimili as she scored a third of Cal’s points with 11.
It looked like it would be all Auburn coming out of the game, as the Tigers scored four straight and forced multiple Cal mistakes, but Cal would come right back. It looked like Auburn would need to make a lot more stops to still be in this game down the stretch.
Coming out of the third quarter media timeout, Auburn kept on hanging around with Cal, using their signature defensive hustle to force a lot of turnovers. 25 turnovers through three quarters allowed the Tigers to take the lead at the end of the third quarter 49-45 at the end of the third.
More of this sloppy play continued in the fourth as there seemed to be either a foul or turnover for either team on almost every possession early. After a couple sloppy minutes, both of the offenses started to come alive and began to feed their bigs. Cal would continue to take advantage of Auburn’s defensive mistakes late, scoring four straight points to go up 59-57 before holding Auburn’s offense scoreless for almost five straight minutes. Auburn’s offense could not catch up late as they fell 59-63 to the Golden Bears to fall to 3-2 on the season.
Auburn plays Northern Iowa next Thursday in the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Paradise Jam tournament. That game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
