Auburn's first shot at clinching its first SEC title in 20 years didn't go as planned. No. 18 Vanderbilt handled the No. 3 Tigers in Nashville on Thursday, building a 16-point halftime lead and holding on after Auburn rallied in the second half to pull as close as one in the final minute.
Sherell Hobbs scored a team-high 19 points in the loss. Alli Smalley added 15.
DeWanna Bonner, who went over the 2,000-point mark for her career, scored 13 points, her lowest point total in SEC play. She is the third Auburn player to reach the plateau, joining Becky Jackson (2,068) and Vickie Orr (2,0350.
That pulls the Commodores (21-6, 10-2 SEC) even with the Tigers (25-2, 10-2) in the conference with two regular season games to play.
Auburn has home games remaining against Georgia, a team it's already lost to, and Arkansas. Vanderbilt has road games against Mississippi and Tennessee.
More importantly, the Tigers no longer control their own destiny for the No. 1 seed in the SEC tournament, since Vanderbilt holds the head-to-head tiebreaker.
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