They normally sit shoulder-to-shoulder at press conferences — one talking about how the other drives them nuts, while the other glares at them with a side-eye, broken up by an occasional eyeroll.

Then they switch roles and return the favor to one another.

But on Thursday night, in a media room more than 1,200 miles away from Auburn, the press conference looked different.

Honesty Scott-Grayson’s storied college career had just come to an abrupt end as Auburn fell to Arizona in a 69-59 loss in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament. So instead of her meeting with the media, Auburn freshman Yakiya Milton and senior Taylen Collins took on the responsibility, followed by head coach Johnnie Harris fielding questions at a table, where she sat by herself.

As a result, the press conference ended without punchy and sarcastic comments between Scott-Grayson and Harris.

It’s not a unique relationship by any means, but it is a rare one among a player and a coach — likely only one a player and coach can get away with if they’ve known each other a long time, which is just the case for Harris and Scott-Grayson.

“I’ve been watching Honesty for a long time,” Harris said Wednesday in a press conference from Storrs, Connecticut, where Auburn was set to compete in the First Four of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

How long is long?

Scott-Grayson was just a wee eighth grader when she and Harris had their first run-in.

“She was doing things that most eighth graders aren’t able to do, and it was just natural instinct,” Harris recalls. “I recruited her from the eighth grade all the way until she was a senior in high school.”

Scott-Grayson was rated a 5-star point guard and was named a McDonald’s All-American come her senior year of high school.

That meant Harris, who was an assistant at Mississippi State at the time, was far from the only one recruiting Scott-Grayson, who held offers from women’s basketball powerhouses like Baylor, Louisville, Notre Dame, Ohio State, South Carolina and UConn.

When Scott-Grayson narrowed her list down, Mississippi State, coming off a run to the state title game, didn’t make the cut.

Instead, the Brick, New Jersey, native signed with Baylor, which was then coached by current LSU head coach Kim Mulkey.

Scott-Grayson didn’t want to get into it a ton and simply said “it didn’t go well” when asked about her time playing under Mulkey. So Scott-Grayson decided to transfer from Baylor after just one season with the Bears.

And once Scott-Grayson’s name hit the portal, Harris, who had moved onto an assistant coaching role at Texas, was going to see to it that she not miss out on the former 5-star this time around. Except there was a hang-up.

“We didn’t have a scholarship available,” Harris said, referring to the Longhorns. “But we did talk to her a little bit, and I knew that coming out of there that she was a person that was hungry and that wanted to get back out on the court and fix some things that had went wrong.”

However, due to NCAA transfer rules at the time, Scott-Grayson was going to have to sit out a year regardless. So she did. And when it came time for her to return to basketball, Harris had just taken the head coaching job at Auburn.

“I was excited. She was excited,” Harris said. “I think her mom was one of the first people to call me.”

Harris didn’t miss twice and Scott-Grayson became an Auburn Tiger as a redshirt freshman during the 2020-21 season.

In a weird, coronavirus-impacted season, Scott-Grayson was the only Auburn player to start all 24 games and was the Tigers’ second-leading scorer. That was just the start.

The next season — the world back to some sort of normalcy — Scott-Grayson started 27 of Auburn’s 28 games. She was second on the team in scoring in rebounding and third on the team in steals in assists. She started posting double-doubles — something that eventually became an expectation.

As a redshirt senior in 2022-23, she was Auburn’s top 3-point shooter, posted five games of 20-plus points and eclipsed the 1,000-career-points milestone in a season that saw the Tigers land in the WNIT.

At the conclusion of her redshirt senior season, Scott-Grayson had a choice to make: she could go on to play professionally, she could transfer, or, she could use that last year of eligibility at Auburn.

“She actually came into my office before I could get to her,” Harris said. “(She) said, ‘Coach, I want to run it back.’ She said, ‘I really believe we can be special, and I want to help this team get to the NCAA Tournament.’”

So Scott-Grayson threw on her No. 23 Auburn jersey for her final season of college basketball and made the most of every single moment.

She tallied a pair of 20-plus-point performances before SEC play got underway. Then she added eight more once conference play started — her first coming via 21 points against then-No. 7 LSU in a historic win from Neville Arena.

That Sunday afternoon was personal for Scott-Grayson as she played against the coach she committed to years prior.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment,” said Scott-Grayson, who sprinted down the floor carrying the basketball like a football after the final buzzer. “And it came.”

Looking back, that win over LSU was pivotal for Auburn. It was when “trying” to win games became “expecting” to win games.

And that new mentality was put on display against the No. 1 team in the country in South Carolina on Feb. 1 as Scott-Grayson scored a career-high 31 points — a performance that drew a compliment from Dawn Staley.

“She was a bucket,” the Gamecocks’ legendary head coach said of Scott-Grayson, who couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows and smile when she learned of Staley’s comment.

Weeks later, Scott-Grayson’s parents would accompany her out to center court for her last game inside Neville Arena — a game against Mississippi State.

She went on to record a new career-high with 32 points for a finish that couldn’t have been more fitting.

But more important than her storybook finish that night, Scott-Grayson knew the win had the Tigers knocking on the door of the NCAA Tournament. The reason for her return was right under her nose and she could smell it that night.

As she walked off the floor of Neville Arena for the final time, she remembers thinking, “this is it.”

Then there was a second thought.

“We’re still not done.”

With the help of Scott-Grayson’s first-team all-SEC-worthy season, Auburn heard its name called during the Selection Sunday broadcast on March 17, giving Auburn its first NCAA Tournament bid since 2019 and Harris her first trip as a head coach.

Scott-Grayson’s decision to stay on The Plains paid off.

“I really believe that she’s worked her butt off to make sure that we were in this position,” Harris said ahead of Auburn’s NCAA Tournament opener.

Unfortunately for Auburn, its first NCAA Tournament run in five years was a short one given the loss to Arizona.

Following the loss, Harris was asked to reflect on the impact of Scott-Grayson.

And unlike times before, Scott-Grayson wasn’t alongside her at the press conference, meaning there was no need for the light-hearted digs and side-eyes.

So Harris just let an answer flow.

“She said she wanted to make sure this team got back to the NCAA Tournament. She knew that that was a goal of mine, that was a vision and she wanted to help to do that,” Harris said.

“She had a chance to go to the next level last year, but she loves Auburn, she loves this team, this program and she just really wanted to be a part of helping Auburn get back to this level… She absolutely loves Auburn.”