One of the best women’s basketball crowds of the season came to Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum on Sunday to say goodbye to the 41-year-old building, absorb all the history surrounding the game and bid adieu to one of the most recognizable people in the city, senior center KeKe Carrier.

What they got was all that and another major Tigers upset.

The Tigers (14-15, 5-11 SEC) did their part in helping close the building in style by playing some old-fashioned, hard-nosed defense, limiting No. 14 Kentucky to its lowest output of the SEC season in the 65-53, feel-good victory.

The win gave Auburn its third win against an Associated Press top 15 team this season, bookend victories in its 36-year relationship with Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum and upped its final BEMC record to 349-72.

“You are not just playing for yourselves and your team this year, but for the history of the Auburn women’s basketball program,” said coach Nell Fortner, who went 53-23 in her six years pacing the sideline at the arena. “They really took that to heart and I am proud of them for that. We were representing a lot of people out on that floor tonight.”

That representation encompassed the players who made it back for a special halftime presentation, the players who didn’t, the great teams in Joe Ciampi’s 25 years with the program, all 12,067 fans that made it out for last year’s Tennessee game, the SEC Champion team of 2009.

“We were not just playing for ourselves tonight,” Smalley said. “We were also playing for everyone who had played here.

“There was a lot on the plate today.”

This year’s Tigers were also playing for Carrier, whose game elevated to unseen levels this season after four years of admitted underachievement.

With a banner of her picture hanging from the ceiling, Carrier scored 6 quick points in an early, 10-0 run, which staked the Tigers to the lead they would not relinquish. Carrier’s layup with 14:20 to play in the second half put her over 1,000 points for her career, making her the 26th player in Auburn history to reach the plateau.

“I wasn’t focusing on that at all, I just wanted to be effective,” Carrier said. “I just wanted to play big.”

The difference in this game, as opposed to the Tigers’ trip to Kentucky earlier this season and Auburn’s loss to Ole Miss on Thursday, was defense and rebounding.

The Wildcats (23-6, 11-5) came in averaging an SEC-best 75.3 points per game and the Tigers held them to their lowest output in conference play and just 2 points off their season-low. The Wildcats, which faced enormous physicality from the Tigers every time they entered the paint, had trouble establishing a presence in the post and managed just 1 second-chance point.

The key was minimizing SEC player of the year candidate Victoria Dunlap, the sister of former Auburn offensive lineman King Dunlap. Dunlap, who came into Sunday’s game averaging 17.7 points per game, scored just 4 on 2-of-15 shooting.

“We did a good job of slowing them down a little bit,” Fortner said, “if that is possible.”

It didn’t appear that way when the Wildcats rattled off 10 unanswered points to cut the Tigers’ lead to 5 with 5:41 to play.

Smalley single-handedly stifled that momentum, whirling into the lane and throwing up a layup behind her head to end the run. She followed on the next possession with a 3-pointer, Auburn’s first of the game, before netting 5 more points in a row to end Kentucky’s hopes of ruining Auburn’s day under the spotlight.

“I just wanted to sit back and have some popcorn and watch a little bit,” Fortner said of Smalley, who finished with 26 points. “When she starts feeling it like that, you just want to sit back and enjoy the show.”

Auburn to open with Florida in SEC tourney
Auburn’s win Sunday, coupled with Arkansas’ loss at Georgia, moved it from 11th to 10th in the SEC and set up a matchup with seventh-seeded Florida on Thursday in the first round of the SEC Tournament in Duluth, Ga.

Auburn, after mounting a 20-point comeback, lost at Florida, 71-68, in double overtime earlier in the season. The Gators, who beat out No. 8 Ole Miss because of a head-to-head tiebreaker, capped their regular season Sunday with an upset loss to Alabama.

A win Thursday would set Auburn up with a rematch Friday against No. 2 Kentucky.

The Tigers need at least two wins over the weekend to finish .500 or better, which would qualify them for the Women’s NIT.

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