The Auburn women’s basketball team might have had one of its most beneficial Fridays of the season this week.

After some weight lifting and film sessions, the Tigers didn’t touch the Beard-Eaves-Memorial court.

Even without a midweek game to keep her team occupied, coach Nell Fortner gave the Tigers, who played shorthanded for a good portion of the season, plenty of rest heading into today’s 2 p.m. game at Mississippi State.

Yes, on the surface, it appears the Tigers, who have lost eight of their past nine SEC games, need all the practice they can get. But at this time of the year, extra rest, especially for a young rotation that often goes just eight- or nine-deep, might be the best remedy.

“As a team, the past couple weeks we’ve been tired,” guard Alli Smalley said. “Everyone at this point of the season is going to be tired and worn down but I think it came at a really good time for us because we’ve been tired in the past few games.

“Our legs aren’t all there, so I think the couple days we’ve gotten off this week will help us going into Mississippi State.”

Smalley is one of a number of players on Auburn’s roster who has seen a drastic increase in minutes per game since last season.

Auburn’s leading scorer is averaging six more minutes per game than she did last year and has played nearly every second of conference games this season. Smalley’s 36.2 minutes-per-game average leads all SEC players and her 38.3 average for conference games trails just four others.

Sophomore Parrisha Simmons went from playing in just 21 games and averaging 7.9 minutes per game last season to appearing in all 26 of Auburn’s games this year, while averaging a little more than 19 minutes per game. Center KeKe Carrier comes in a close second and has likely been the player most affected by the increase, jumping from 9.9 minutes per game in 2008-09 to 20.4 this season.

Two other players, forward Jordan Greenleaf and point guard Morgan Toles, are less than a year removed, respectively, from tearing their ACLs. Four others in the rotation are freshmen who, at this time last year, were a week or so away from ending their high school careers.

“We’ve been real sloppy and I think that can be from being tired,” Smalley said. “A lot of people have played a ton of minutes, so that’s tough.”

That’s about as far as Auburn’s players will go when it comes to finding reasons for their recent swoon, which has left them with eight more conference losses than they had all last season and three more games to play.

The added rest from this week might just make those final games easier to take, especially with the SEC Tournament looming on the horizon.

“The main focus for us, as a whole, is to keep our confidence up,” Carrier said. “We just have to stay positive in all circumstances. We’re not used to this from last year and we’re just trying to keep our focus for what we came here to do — competing in the SEC.”

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