Tennessee lost one of its senior leaders to an injury and hardly incorporated its other into the offense, but the Lady Volunteers survived a scare and 24 turnovers Thursday night in their first game of the Southeastern Conference women’s basketball tournament in Nashville.
Freshman forward Rennia Davis banked in a 3-pointer with 0.5 second left to lift the seventh-seeded Lady Vols to a 64-61 win over 10th-seeded Auburn.
The No. 12 Lady Vols (24-6) will play South Carolina at 7 EST tonight in the quarterfinals with the status of both teams’ leading scorers in question.
Tennessee’s first-team All-SEC senior wing Jaime Nared left Thursday’s game in the fourth quarter after falling on her hip. The Lady Vols turned the ball over four straight times after that, and the Tigers (14-15) closed within 55-54.
When Nared re-entered, she immediately scored to put the Lady Vols ahead 57-54 with 4:57 remaining.