A crowd of 4,500 elementary school students from Lee County is expected to pack Neville Arena on Tuesday as Auburn women’s basketball hosts Furman for its annual Education Day. The matinee closes a three-game homestand to open the season, and the Tigers are looking to stay perfect against a Paladins team picked to win the Southern Conference. Tipoff is set for noon EDT, and arena doors open at 9:30 a.m. EDT. The game will stream on SEC Network+, and Brit Bowen and Larry DiChiara will have the radio call on ESPN 106.7 FM starting at 11:45 a.m. EDT.
Auburn (2-0) comes in off a hard-fought 56-48 win over Southern Miss on Thursday, when graduate forward Jessica Peterson took over on the glass. Peterson posted her first double-double as a Tiger with 14 points and a game-high 19 rebounds, and she scored Auburn’s first six points of the fourth quarter to protect a lead that Southern Miss had cut to two going into the final period. Her 19 rebounds tied for the 15th-most in a single game in program history and were the most by an Auburn player since Unique Thompson grabbed 19 against Arkansas in January 2021. Peterson is now one of 14 players in program history with a 19-rebound game, joining a list that includes DeWanna Bonner, KeKe Carrier and Tra’Cee Tanner, and through two games she is averaging a double-double with 13 points and 13.5 rebounds.
Sophomore forward Danielle Osho, a Miami transfer from Dacula, Georgia, has led Auburn in scoring in both games and averages 16 points per game. She added 16 points, seven rebounds and three blocks against Southern Miss, while Ja’Mia Harris scored 14, including six free throws in the fourth quarter. Auburn’s defense held the Golden Eagles to 22.4 percent shooting and 0-for-17 from 3-point range. That came after an 84-35 season-opening rout of Alabama State on Nov. 2, when the 35 points allowed were the fewest by any opponent under second-year head coach Larry Vickers.
The roster has a new look under Vickers, who is six wins away from his 200th career victory. Auburn brought back only six players from last season and only two starters, Harris and Kaitlyn Duhon, while adding eight newcomers, six of them Division I transfers. Duhon and Peterson were elected team captains, and Duhon was one of the nation’s top defenders last season, finishing in the top 15 nationally with 101 steals and becoming just the second player in program history with 100 or more steals in a season. Auburn was picked 15th in both SEC preseason polls, but a win Tuesday would give the Tigers a 3-0 start for the fourth straight season.
Furman (2-1) comes to the Plains with something to prove. The Paladins opened with an 80-54 loss at South Florida, then won at home over Erskine, 106-48, and Southern Wesleyan, 77-38, in their own Education Day game last Friday. Fourth-year head coach Pierre Curtis returns eight letterwinners and four starters from an 18-13 team, led by preseason All-Southern Conference picks Clare Coyle and Alyssa Ervin. Coyle averaged 14.8 points and a league-leading 9.1 rebounds last season, and she leads Furman this year with 16.7 points and seven rebounds per game. Ervin averaged 13.8 points and shot 35.1 percent from 3-point range a year ago. Raina McGowens and Sophia Pearl give the Paladins experienced guard play.
History is on Auburn’s side. The Tigers are 6-0 all-time against Furman, and every win has come by double digits, by an average of 25 points. Tuesday’s game will be the first meeting since Auburn beat the Paladins 78-64 in the first round of the 2014 WNIT and the first regular-season meeting since an 86-42 Auburn win in December 2005. The Tigers are also 101-15 in non-conference home games since moving into Neville Arena in 2010-11, and last year’s Education Day crowd of 5,769 set an attendance record for an Auburn non-conference home game.
After Tuesday, Auburn goes on the road for the first time this season, facing Texas Tech on Friday at 7 p.m. EDT in Lubbock, Texas, on ESPN+.
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