Seton Hall Outlasts Auburn in 3-Point Shootout on Snowy Day in New Jersey
On a cold, snowy afternoon in South Orange, it was the Seton Hall Pirates who brought the heat from beyond the arc. Despite a career day from Kaitlyn Duhon, Auburn couldn’t quite complete the comeback, falling 69-63 in a game that turned into a long-range shootout.
Duhon was lights out, knocking down all five of her 3-point attempts and finishing with a career-high 20 points. She also led Auburn on the glass with eight rebounds, doing everything she could to keep the Tigers in it. But Seton Hall, matching fire with fire, hit 12 threes of their own - just one more than Auburn’s season-high 11 - and made the timely shots that mattered most down the stretch.
“We’ve got to do a better job of starting basketball games,” Auburn head coach Larry Vickers said postgame. “We’ve owned the first five minutes of every game, and today we did not.”
That slow start proved costly. After Khady Leye opened the scoring for Auburn, the Tigers went ice-cold, and Seton Hall jumped out to an 11-2 lead. Vickers called a quick timeout, and his team responded with an 11-2 run of their own, sparked by a pair of Sania Richardson threes, to tie things up at 13 by the end of the first quarter.
But the second quarter told a different story. Auburn went flat again, and Seton Hall capitalized with a 12-2 run to create some breathing room. The Tigers trimmed the deficit briefly, but a Pirate triple snapped a four-minute scoring drought and sent Seton Hall into the half up 32-24.
“We weren’t locked in during that second quarter,” Vickers said. “Back-to-back games now where we’ve come out flat in the second. That’s something we’ve got to fix.”
The Tigers showed plenty of fight in the second half. After falling behind by as many as 11 early in the third, Auburn clawed back with a 13-4 run, cutting the deficit to just two. They shot 52 percent in the second half, including 7-of-13 from deep, and looked much more like the team that had won eight of its first ten games.
Still, every time Auburn made a push, Seton Hall had an answer.
Down seven with just over three minutes to go, Auburn made one final charge. A Ja’Mia Harris 3-pointer - the team’s 11th of the day - brought the Tigers within one at 62-61 with 1:49 left.
But the Pirates responded 20 seconds later with a dagger three of their own. After Leye scored inside to make it 65-63, Seton Hall once again found an open look from deep and buried it, stretching the lead back to five and effectively sealing the win.
Harris finished with 17 points, including two treys, and grabbed seven rebounds. A’riel Jackson added 10 points and dished out a team-high four assists. Leye chipped in eight points and seven boards.
Despite the hot shooting from deep, Auburn couldn’t capitalize at the free throw line, going just 6-of-12 for the game, including six misses in the second half. That left valuable points on the table in a game where every possession mattered.
Auburn did win the rebounding battle 36-34, but turnovers told another story. The Tigers gave it away 17 times, and Seton Hall turned those into 17 points. Meanwhile, Auburn managed just nine points off 15 Pirate turnovers - a missed opportunity in a game that was tight from start to finish.
Seton Hall’s Mariana Valenzuela led all scorers with 20 points, knocking down four triples. Savannah Catalon added 15 and matched Valenzuela with four 3-pointers of her own.
For Auburn, the loss stings, especially after the way they fought back. But the second quarter lapses and costly defensive breakdowns in the clutch were too much to overcome.
“There’s a lot of one-on-one defense right now,” Vickers said. “We’ve got to play team defense and help each other. That’s the only way we’re going to get better.”
Auburn won’t have much time to dwell on this one. They’re back on the road Tuesday, taking on Middle Tennessee at 6:30 p.m.
ET in Murfreesboro. It’s another tough test - and another chance to tighten things up before SEC play begins.