No. 25 Auburn’s upset bid falls just short on road against No. 2 Tennessee

Bruce Pearl knew the task ahead for Auburn during the back stretch of its SEC schedule, so he challenged his team to see if it could “pick off” a couple of big-time wins against some of the Tigers’ toughest opponents of the year.

On Saturday on the road against No. 2 Tennessee, No. 25 Auburn nearly did just that. The Tigers took the Vols down to the wire at Thompson-Boling Arena, but a frantic finish and a questionable no-call on a game-tying 3-point attempt by Wendell Green Jr. saw Auburn’s upset bid come up just short Saturday afternoon in Knoxville, Tenn.

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With Auburn trailing by three in the waning seconds, Green looped high around the arc to retrieve the ball from Johini Broome and fired off a contested 3-point attempt before the buzzer. Green’s shot caromed off the rim, and the final whistle sounded as Green, Bruce Pearl and the rest of Auburn’s bench looked on in bewilderment at a no-call after Green absorbed a considerable amount of contact from Tennessee’s Olivier Nkamhoua on the attempt.

Instead of a trip to the line to potentially tie the game with three free-throw attempts, it was Tennessee 46, Auburn 43 — and a missed opportunity at returning home with an all-important Quad 1 win for Pearl and his team.

“Most disappointing loss of the year,” Pearl said. “Had a chance to beat the No. 2 team in the country…. Very disappointed at the end of the game. Very disappointed.”

The controversial final sequence — of which Pearl said he received no explanation from officials afterward — was preceded by a late-game rally for Auburn, which fell behind by as many as eight with 5:25 to play in a game where scoring was at a premium. The Tigers cut the deficit to two thanks to a 6-0 run that included four points from K.D. Johnson and a pair of free throws from Jaylin Williams, but the Vols pushed it back to a six-point lead with 2:33 to play when Santiago Vescovi completed a 4-point play.

After missing each of his first five attempts from beyond the arc Saturday, Vescovi drained one from the left wing and drew a foul against Johnson in the process. He made the free throw to made it a six-point game—a seemingly insurmountable lead at that juncture of the game on a day like this.

Auburn didn’t fold, though.

After a pair of missed Tennessee free throws, Green connected on a 3-pointer with 30.9 seconds to play to cut the deficit in half. Auburn forced a turnover thanks to a full-court trap on the ensuing Tennessee inbound play, and a tip-in by Broome with 18 seconds to play made it a one-point game. The Tigers quickly fouled Zakai Zeigler, who made both free throws and set up the frenetic final sequence as Auburn fell to 17-6 on the year and 7-3 in SEC play.

Green finished with nine points, seven rebounds and three assists on an afternoon in which Auburn matched its season-low for points and made field goals while shooting just 23.6 percent for the game. Broome had a team-high 11 to go with nine rebounds, while Johnson finished with 10, scoring in double figures for the third straight game.

“You know, I don’t think we were affected at all by the environment, which was great,” Pearl said, pausing for emphasis. “We weren’t affected by the environment.”

Here are AL.com’s takeaways from Saturday’s game:

Auburn couldn’t sustain a hot start on the road

Auburn knew scoring would be at a premium against Tennessee, which entered Saturday’s game with the nation’s best defense. That’s what made the Tigers’ start at Thompson-Boling Arena so impressive.

Auburn jumped out to an 8-0 lead against Tennessee in the opening minutes and then held a 10-2 lead in the game’s first 4 ½ minutes. During that quick start, all of Auburn’s paints came from inside the paint, including a 3-for-3 start from Johni Broome, who also grabbed three early rebounds in that stretch. The Tigers’ defense, meanwhile, forced the Vols into a 0-for-7 start from the field—including 0-of-2 from deep and a 0-for-5 start for big man Olivier Nkamhoua.

“Man, Johni did great,” Pearl said of Broome, who along with 11 points (on 5-of-13 shooting) and nine boards added three blocks and a pair of steals. “Again, a better coach would have gotten him the ball better than me. I should’ve gotten him more touches, and I should’ve gotten it to him more deeper. But Tennessee’s a great defensive team —a great defensive team, and arguably the best defensive team in the country, and they played like it tonight. They did all the things you need to do to win on the defensive end. They made it really hard on us.”

After Auburn’s surge out of the gate, making five of its first seven shots on the road, the Tigers struggled to muster any sort of offense. They missed 18 of their final 19 shots of the first half, with the lone make coming on a deep straightaway 3-pointer from Wendell Green Jr.

Despite the Tigers’ inability to string together baskets for the last 15-plus minutes of the opening half, they managed to go into halftime trailing by just four, 23-19, against one of the nation’s top teams.

Between the 15:41 mark of the first half and the same mark in the second half—a full 20 minutes of game time — Green’s 3-pointer was Auburn’s only made basket. The Tigers finished the game shooting 13-of-55 overall and just 3-of-27 (11.1 percent) from beyond the arc, and while the percentages weren’t great, it didn’t help Auburn’s cause that many of its open looks just wouldn’t fall, with several quality shots going halfway down before rimming out.

“I think we’re going to look at it and say we got some pretty good looks,” Pearl said. “We missed some open shots, and when you play against the No. 2 team in the country, you got to make open shots, because it’s hard to make open shots.”

Auburn held its own defensively

Despite one of the worst offensive performances in years, Auburn still had a chance to steal a Quad 1 win and a big-time upset on the road against one of the nation’s best teams.

How? The Tigers held their own defensively in what was an absolute rock fight at Thompson-Boling Arena.

“Kids did an incredible job defensively,” Pearl said. “Our guards, the way they guarded Vescovi and Zeigler, nobody else — I mean, it doesn’t matter what anyone else can do; I can’t compliment our kids enough for the way they locked in the scouting report. Steven Pearl and his team did an incredible job.”

Auburn held Tennessee to just 27 percent shooting (17-of-63) on the afternoon, including a 2-of-21 clip (9.5 percent) from 3-point range. It represented a season-low in scoring for the Vols and their fewest points since a 38-point game against Alabama in 2015. Saturday was also their second-worst overall shooting performance of the season — second only to their 25.4 percent effort in a loss to Colorado. Auburn also held Tennessee to its worst 3-point shooting performance of the season, as it was the first time all year and the first time since the 2017 season that the Vols were held below 10 percent from deep

That defensive tenacity from Pearl’s team, which held Tennessee to just seven made field goals in the second half, kept Auburn within striking distance throughout the afternoon and almost led the Tigers to the road upset.

“To hold Tennessee down to 27 percent shooting and 9 percent from 3, and everything we did just to give ourselves a chance,” Pearl said. “So, the effort, the energy, the toughness, the fight—I was very proud of my team.”

Tennessee had an edge on the boards

With both teams struggling to get shots to fall, Tennessee found an advantage in creating extra opportunities against Auburn and making the most of them.

The Vols had a distinct edge on the boards against the Tigers, pulling down 15 offensive rebounds on the afternoon. That allowed Tennessee to extend possessions against Auburn, and while the Tigers played stout defense throughout the afternoon—holding the Vols to 27 percent shooting for the day—Rick Barnes’ team managed to score 10 points off those offensive rebounds. They outscored Auburn, 10-2, in second-chance points—a difference that loomed large in a game decided by a single possession.

For as good as Broome, Jaylin Williams and Allen Flanigan have been on the defensive glass this season, Tennessee’s ability to corral rebounds off its own misses shouldn’t come as a surprise; the Vols entered the game as the nation’s second-best offensive rebounding team, with a 37.8 percent offensive rebound rate, second only to Houston (38.2 percent) on the year. Tennessee posted a 32.6 percent offensive rebounding rate against Auburn, and while it was below the Vols’ season average, they still made the most of the additional opportunities in a low-scoring affair.

“They’re monsters,” Pearl said. “They’re big, strong, physical, and I thought our guys fought pretty valiantly. I think there were a couple of second-half offensive rebounds where maybe we came up out of our stance and didn’t finish the possession. But Jaylin Williams with eight defensive (rebounds), Johni with six, Wendell with seven, Al with seven — I mean, those are great numbers against the best offensive rebounding team in our league, so obviously second-chance points was a factor.”

It also didn’t help Auburn’s prospects in the frontcourt that it was without backup center Dylan Cardwell, who didn’t make the trip to Knoxville while dealing with an undisclosed illness. That left Auburn shorthanded in the frontcourt, with freshman Yohan Traore filling in as the Tigers’ backup to Broome, making a return to the rotation after not playing in each of Auburn’s prior three games. Cardwell’s presence down low could have helped Auburn on the glass, particularly during stretches when Broome was on the bench.

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.

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