KeKe Carrier stood alone at the halfcourt line inside Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum after Wednesday’s practice, her gym bag stationed near the folded-up bleachers.

Carrier, Auburn’s lone senior, didn’t have one of the team’s four freshmen bring it out for her before the Tigers caught their plane for tonight’s game at Ole Miss.

It was there the entire time.

Coach Nell Fortner hasn’t allowed the Tigers to use their locker room since their Feb. 7 loss to Alabama. Sunday’s 50-36 upset victory over
Mississippi State in Starkville, which snapped a four-game streak of ugly basketball, wasn’t enough to unlock the doors.

“We’re not really too focused on getting in the locker room. It’s just basically about picking our game back up and getting ourselves refocused and performing like we need to perform,” Carrier said. “Yeah, we want to get our locker room back, but the whole point is playing up to our abilities.”

The Tigers (13-14, 4-10 SEC) are running out of time if they hope to dress inside the 40-year-old building one more time before they move next door to the Auburn Arena.

Tonight’s game serves as the penultimate game to the regular season, and marks Auburn’s final road trip before next week’s SEC Tournament in Duluth, Ga. Sunday’s game against Kentucky will mark the team’s last at Beard-Eaves.

If Auburn loses tonight, it will also likely lose the opportunity to say a proper good bye to one of its favorite parts of the building.

“I’ll know when it’s time,” Fortner said. “It’s everything. It’s a consistent effort in everything they do, whether it’s a practice, game, whatever.
They’re doing well, they’re trying to get back in there and we’ll see what happens.”

Sunday’s game, though, doesn’t have to be the Tigers’ final home game of the season.

If Auburn picks up wins tonight and Sunday, it would guarantee itself a .500 or better overall record. That, in turn, would likely land the Tigers in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, which recently expanded its field from 32 to 64 teams, but still requires all participants to carry a .500-or-better record.

The newly formed Women’s Basketball Invitational is another option. The Tigers wouldn’t need a winning record to qualify for the 16-team tournament and would likely accept an invitation in order to give their young players postseason experience.

The Tigers’ season hasn’t ended without postseason play since 2006.

Fortner said the topic, even without the cozy confines of a locker room, hasn’t been broached.

“We don’t talk about it really,” Fortner said. “We’re just looking for wins. We know we want to play postseason, but we’re not talking about that. We’re just trying to focus on the next opponent.”

The Tigers will have to play through another team’s Senior Night before they can even think about the WNIT. Rebels guard Bianca Thomas, the SEC’s leading scorer, will be one of those seniors, and she’s typically saved some of her best games for the Tigers, scoring a combined 40
points in the teams’ two meetings last year.

“She’s just really lit us up in the past,” Fortner said. “We’re trying to be very focused on her not having one of those kinds of nights.”

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AU (13-14, 4-10) at Ole Miss (15-12, 6-8)
Where: C.M. “Tad” Smith Coliseum; Oxford, Miss.
When: 6 p.m.
TV/Radio: None/WMXA 96.7 FM
Scouting report: The Rebels are the only team Auburn hasn’t faced this season. For once, Auburn will be entering tonight’s game on a hotter streak than its opponent, with the Rebels having dropped the past four games, all but eliminating their NCAA Tournament hopes. The Rebels revolve around Bianca Thomas, who leads the SEC with 20.6 points per game and has torched the Tigers in the past. In last year’s regular season matchup, Thomas scored a game-high 28 points.
Projected starters Auburn: F Jordan Greenleaf (7.3 ppg, 6.9 rpg), G Parrisha Simmons (3.3 ppg, 5.4 rpg), G Blanche Alverson (6.7 ppg, 3.6 rpg), G Alli Smalley (15.0 ppg, 4.4 rpg), G Morgan Toles (7.2 ppg, 4.4 apg)
Projected starters Ole Miss: C Kayla Holloway (3.9 ppg, 3.3 rpg), F Elizabeth Robertson (9.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg), G Shantell Black (9.5 ppg, 4.5 apg), G Kayla Melson (13.4 ppg, 5.9 apg), G Bianca Thomas (20.6 ppg, 5.4 rpg)