Coming off a dominant performance against a bottom-tier Southeastern Conference team in Arkansas earlier in the week, No. 13 Mizzou women’s basketball found itself in a similar situation coming into Thursday night’s game against Auburn on the road.

The Tigers were able to scrape out a much-needed win, beating Auburn 59-51 and keeping Mizzou in a four-team tie for third place in the SEC. However, the team’s Thursday night performance was a mixed bag of individual displays.

While the Tigers held the lead for the majority of the game, poor games from players like Lauren Aldridge, Amber Smith and Cierra Porter proved to be costly and kept Auburn in the game. Aldridge and Smith combined for 12 turnovers and Porter fouled out with 4:47 left in the final quarter. Together, all three combined for 19 points.

Mizzou’s biggest problem throughout the night was turnovers. As a team, the Tigers couldn’t seem to handle Auburn’s zone defense, finding themselves frequently trapped throughout and throwing the ball away, totaling 24 turnovers — double the amount of Auburn’s.

Where the Tigers seemed to find a difference Thursday night was in the paint, scoring just a little over of half – 50.8 percent – of their points in the post. As a team, Mizzou outscored Auburn in the paint 30 to 18 and was led by redshirt senior forward Jordan Frericks with 19 points. Frericks also had eight rebounds.

The win puts Mizzou at 21-5 and 9-4 in the conference. Its next game will be at home against No. 11 Tennessee on Sunday at 1 p.m. CT.