AUBURN, Ala. – Auburn women's basketball coach Terri Williams-Flournoy might have turned some heads at SEC Media Day when she talked about this year's team.
"We're building a team of excellence," the seventh-year head coach said. "That's how we play every day. That's how we work every day. We work every single day to be excellent. We're not trying to be good. We're not trying to be great. We're trying to be excellent."
Under Williams-Flournoy, the Tigers have been to the postseason in four of the last six seasons. That's good by most program's standards. But they've yet to be excellent. They've yet to advance past the second round of the NCAA Tournament. And they're coming off a season in which they finished 14-15 and missed the postseason altogether.
The good news for Auburn is that the team's three top scorers are back. Janiah McKay (16.6), Daisa Alexander (14.2) and Unique Thompson (11.5) combined to average 42.3 points per game last season, which is nearly 67 percent of the team's scoring. McKay, the team's point guard, also led the team with 4.5 assists per game while Thompson finished as the team's top rebounder, averaging 8.4 boards per game.
"They set the tone," Williams-Flournoy said. "It's huge (to have them back) because you have something to build around. You're not building from the bottom and trying to get to the top. We have pieces, and we're building around them."
But if last year proved anything, it's that those three can't do it alone. If Auburn wants to be excellent this year, it's going to need other players to step up.
The Tigers are going to need senior Erica Sanders, one of the team's better defenders, to become more of a scoring threat. They're going to need fellow senior Emari Jones to be a better defensive player and defensive rebounder. They want sophomore Abigayle Jackson, who backed up Thompson in the post last year, to take her game to another level.
There will also be plenty of new faces on the court this season, beginning with Duke transfer Crystal Primm and redshirt freshman Kiyae' White. Both practiced with the team last year. True freshmen guards Brooke Moore and Robyn Benton have the ability to provide instant offense for Auburn when they're in the game.
"We have a lot of pieces and we have a lot of people back, and I think some of them are stepping into different roles," Williams-Flournoy said. "They call them roles. I call them responsibilities. You have a responsibility to do what we need you to do. You're not a role player. You're not coming in to be a role player. You're coming in to get something done."
At the end of the day, the goal is to be excellent. And the players have embodied that motto this offseason. They're doing the right things on and off the court. They're setting higher goals for this season. They even called out their coach at practice one day.
"Coach, we can be better than that if we're trying to be excellent."
"It's given them a different kind of mindset to not just be average, not just be the norm," Williams-Flournoy said. "Go above and beyond that."
Auburn opens the season on Tuesday, Nov. 6 at home against Grambling State.
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @greg_ostendorf