Feb. 4, 2016
AUBURN, Ala. — For more than a decade, the Vanderbilt women have enjoyed a road-court advantage at Auburn.
That ended Thursday night.
Guilty of a season-high 29 turnovers and limited to 17 percent shooting from 3-point range, the Commodores suffered a 53-45 loss to the Tigers.
Vanderbilt (15-7, 4-5) had won nine consecutive games on Auburn’s home floor, including posting a 7-0 record during head coach Melanie Balcomb’s tenure. Auburn hadn’t won at home against Vanderbilt since 1999.
But the Commodores — who came into the night ranked in the Top 15 nationally in both 3-point percentage and field-goal percentage — never got in sync on Thursday, shooting just 35 percent from the floor, including 3-of-17 from 3-point range, against the Tigers (15-8, 5-5).
“We’ve got to come up with a different word to use other than ‘frustrated,'” said head coach Melanie Balcomb. “Because I am tired of having to use that word. … The bottom line is that we just don’t have enough consistency right now.”
Brandy Montgomery finished with a game-high 16 points for Auburn, which has now won three straight against Vanderbilt, with the previous two coming in Nashville. Jasmine Jenkins led the Commodores with 13 points.
Vanderbilt’s Christa Reed, who is Vanderbilt’s leading scorer and is ranked sixth in the nation in 3-point accuracy, was hampered by foul trouble and played just 15 minutes, finishing with five points before fouling out. Point guard Minta Spears also fouled out for the Commodores, who dropped their second straight game.
Vanderbilt fell behind in the first two minutes of the game, and trailed the rest of the way. The Commodores faced narrow deficits at each quarter break — trailing 10-8 after the first quarter, 24-21 at the half and 31-29 after the third. But the Tigers opened the fourth quarter with a 10-3 run to extend the lead to 41-32 on a basket by Montgomery, and eventually pushed the lead to as many as 13 points, 48-35, with 1:55 to go.
Vanderbilt easily out-rebounded Auburn, 38-17, and the Commodores’ bench outscored Auburn 26-10. Also, Auburn finished just 13-of-25 at the foul line. But none of that mattered much on a night when the Vanderbilt offense simply couldn’t get going.
Vanderbilt visits Arkansas on Monday.
NOTES: Vanderbilt’s nine-game road winning streak against Auburn included two wins since the opening of Auburn Arena in 2010. Prior to that, Vanderbilt won seven in a row at the Tigers’ previous home court, Beard-Eaves Arena. … Morgan Batey finished with four rebounds, and now has 499 for her career.
