Rutgers women’s basketball will hit the road for the first time this season, with its lone contest of the week being at Auburn. The Scarlet Knights survived against another tough mid-major opponent on Sunday,
defeating Fairleigh Dickinson 59-49 to improve to 4-1 after their five-game opening homestand. The team has wins over Wagner, Quinnipiac, Rhode Island, and FDU, with their lone loss coming to Stony Brook last Sunday.
The Tigers will be the first power conference opponent Rutgers has played this season, in addition to being the first road game of the year. Along with Princeton, it will be among the toughest nonconference games of the year for the Knights, but this one comes a few weeks earlier and much farther away from home.
Auburn is 4-0 on the young season, with a couple of close calls against Charlotte and UNCG paired with a couple of blowouts against Alabama State and Mississippi Valley State. They have a game tonight against Georgia State and have not left Neville Arena since their opening game at Charlotte, a 71-58 overtime victory.
This will be the return game for the home-and-home series that began with a 76-56 victory for the Tigers in New Jersey early in the 2023 season. Chyna Cornwell secured a double-double for the Knights, with Kaylene Smikle leading Rutgers with 19 points, and Jillian Huerter had 11 points, going 3-6 from downtown. The Scarlet Knights had previously defeated Auburn 80-52 in a postseason contest in Piscataway in the 2008-2009 season.
Making this matchup more notable is that Rutgers will face off with former guard Mya Petticord, who has opted to return to the SEC for her senior season. The Michigan native began her career at Texas A&M before playing two seasons with the Scarlet Knights, ranking third on the team with 10.2 points per game in her sophomore year. She played in every game for Rutgers as a junior, ranking second on the team with 44 threes on the season, including a career-high of 18 points off of six triples in the WNIT Super 16.
Tip-off from Neville Arena will be at 7 PM Eastern, with a TV designation still to be determined. As the game is an SEC home game, it will likely be broadcast on ESPN+, with Fox Sports Radio and WRSU-FM having live radio broadcasts.
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