Errant passes and forced entry looks led to a Missouri women’s basketball 71-58 loss to the Auburn Tigers Thursday night at Mizzou Arena. Missouri turned the ball 30 times, matching a season-high.

Missouri fell to 16-12 overall and 4-9 in the Southeastern Conference play following the loss compared to Auburn’s 14-13 overall and 3-10 conference record.

“I was really disappointed in our lack of execution,” head coach Kellie Harper said. “I thought there were numerous times we had our calls on and we weren’t executing like we needed to.”

The Missouri Tigers could not overcome early turnover woes, as their 12 first-quarter turnovers previewed what was to come. Missouri’s lack of ball control remained prominent through the first half, as the Tigers turned the ball over more than shots taken.

Auburn committed 10 total turnovers offensively while their hounding defense forced 17 total steals. Junior guard Shannon Dowell led Missouri with nine turnovers and played a limited 24 minutes due to her lack of ball security.

Junior guard Grace Slaughter led the team with 19 points, but also could not escape the nagging Auburn defenders, dishing out five turnovers.

“We absolutely have to give Auburn credit,” Harper said. “That’s what they do and that’s how they play. We can be better, we need to be better, we just weren’t today.”

A season-long difficulty of allowing offensive rebounds was another factor in the loss, as the Tigers allowed 14 offensive rebounds while grabbing two of their own.

Despite being comparatively undersized, Harper still had a message for how the Tigers can improve on the glass.

“We have to be the more disciplined team when we’re trying to box out,” Harper said. “And even that, there will be times that we will do it right and still not get the ball. We know that, so we have to limit those.”

Senior forward Jordana Reisma was a silver lining for Missouri, recording 10 points, seven rebounds and three assists in her first game back since Feb. 1.

“Only reason she didn’t have better stats is because we couldn’t get the ball down the floor and get it to her,” Harper said. “She played tremendous, and she practiced half a day, not even a full practice. I’m just really proud of her.”

Leading the charge for Auburn was redshirt junior guard Kaitlyn Duhon, tallying a team-high 19 points on 6-for-15 shooting. Auburn shot 37.7% from the field and 34.8% from beyond the arc in the contest.

Missouri bested Auburn in percentage, shooting 57.1% from field-goal range and 35.3% from three, but that proved to be trivial as Missouri attempted a mere 35 field goals compared to Auburn’s 69.

“To pick up a stat sheet and say you shoot 57% from the field, you typically feel pretty good about that,” Harper said. “Those turnovers were a huge problem.”

Missouri will face back-to-back top 10 opponents as it travels to No. 7 Louisiana State at 3 p.m. Sunday and No. 3 South Carolina at 7 p.m.Thursday.

Edited by Killian Wright | [email protected]
Copy edited by Emma Harper | [email protected]
Edited by Alex Gribb | [email protected]