TERRI WILLIAMS-FLOURNOY, Auburn Women’s Head Basketball Coach, is prepared to conquer another season. Her players have created a reputation of excellence each season. As the years have progressed, the dedicated Auburn women have worked tirelessly to promote great basketball and as Coach “Flo” leads the team into her seventh coaching season, the team has shown themselves to be a worthy opponent.
Sophomore forward Unique Thompson ’20 is confident the team is ready for upcoming games and challenges, expecting everything will soon fall into place for the women.
The Auburn family does not stop with academics and social life, either. The players work hard to create an experience for Auburn students at each and every game.
“I feel as though this team is really special because we’re all on the same page and we’re ready,” Thompson said. “Everything that we have gone through in the pre-season and the off-season, we know that we worked so hard for it and we know that we can’t let it go to waste.”
The friendship the players have formed is visible to fans, even off court. Recently, the Tigers released a dance video that showed several players dancing and having fun with one another. The video, posted to the Auburn Women’s Basketball Facebook page, was captioned: ‘Dancing into SEC play like…’.
“We know that we all have each other’s back and we know that if one of us has to fight, we’ll all be ready to fight,” Thompson said. “And especially with the coaches, I look at them as another set of parents because they’re always there and willing to talk to you.”
In six seasons, Coach “Flo” has a 102-91 record as Auburn’s head coach. With a strategy of full-court pressure defense, “Flo” lead the team to a 14-15 overall last season and currently own a 17-5 overall record.
“The main thing that we focus on is being able to have a good game that fans can enjoy the whole time that they’re there,” Thompson said. “And also give them something to remember so they can keep coming back.”
Earlier in the season, the Auburn Women’s Basketball team lost senior guard Emari Jones ’19 to injury. Because of the friendship between players, this left the women with someone to rally around and inspire them to perform better.
“She told us that if we don’t have anything to play for, we can play for her,” Thompson said.
Thompson said she came to Auburn because of the family environment and relationship she developed with her coaches. The friendship between players only serves to foster that environment and the Auburn family.
While the men’s basketball team generally draws more of fans’ attention, the women’s team is finally earning the on-court respect they deserve thanks to their hard work in the offseason.
“We have to work for it, because we know the men get it easier than we do,” Thompson said. “When the fans come out, we’re going to be ready for them.”