NASHVILLE – For the fourth time in seven seasons, Tennessee will play for the SEC Tournament Championship after the Volunteers defeated defending champion and top-seeded Auburn, 70-65, in Saturday’s semifinals at Bridgestone Arena.
Sunday’s finale will match No. 4 seed Tennessee (27-6) against No. 2 seed Florida (29-4), which boatraced No. 3 Alabama, 104-82, in the other semifinal Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
The game featured eight ties and 18 lead changes with the Volunteers gaining a seventh top 15 and fourth top seven victory of the season.
“It was a high-level game, it really was,” said Tennessee coach Rick Barnes. “Both teams fought their hearts out and I’m just proud of our guys.
“It’s not about schemes this time of year. I thought both teams showed a lot of toughness, a lot of fight. Today it came out our way.”
After struggling at the free throw line in a quarterfinal win over Texas on Friday, Tennessee made 25-of-27 attempts at the stripe against the Tigers.
“Getting to the bonus early was important for us,” noted Barnes. “I thought that was really, really important.”
Meanwhile Auburn made just 13-of-22 foul shots in defeat.
“Tennessee is a great team. They play the right way. They're worthy of defeating us,” said Auburn coach Bruce Pearl.
“We have to do a better job defensively. The last time we played them, they scored 51 points. Tonight they scored 70. In particular, we fouled them too much. That's not a comment about the officiating. The officiating was fine. They scored 37% of their points at the foul line. That's on us.”
Zakai Zeigler paced Tennessee with 20 points, making 9-of-9 free throws to go with four assists and four rebounds. Zeigler, who broke Tennessee’s single-season assist record set 50 years ago by Rodney Woods against Texas, moved into the SEC’s top ten single season assist chart with 234 on the season. Zeigler is also nine assists away from Tennessee’s career record of 715 set by Johnny Darden.
“Today he (Ziegler) was in great command of himself because he's so competitive,” Barnes said. “I mean, if you could have been in the huddle hearing him talk to his team, big-time leader today. The way he saw the game developing, the way it unfolded, he had a presence about himself today that was outstanding.”
Jordan Gainey was 8-for-8 at the line, finishing with 15 points and five rebounds. Jahmai Mashack had the only two misses at the stripe, but also made six.
Nashville native Chaz Lanier got the Volunteers going early for a second straight day, making his first four shots in scoring ten points in the game’s first ten minutes as Tennessee assumed a 22-17 lead.
“Today, our offense, in our floppy action, I thought that Jordan and even Z down there, Chaz, I thought those guys really started getting in a rhythm, playing with each other,” said PBarnes. “I thought we set some really good screens today.”
The Volunteers led by as many as seven in the first half, 26-19, at the under-eight timeout. But Auburn held Tennessee scoreless over the next 5:15 to move ahead, 29-26.
Trailing by one at the break, 33-32, the Tigers moved ahead 41-36 courtesy of a six-point burst with 16:43 to play.
With Auburn leading 46-45, Tennessee went on a 17-4 run to lead 62-50 with 7:17 remaining. The Tigers answered with a 10-0 run and trailed just 64-62 with just over four minutes to play.
Auburn trailed by three with possession but missed three straight field goal attempts and two free throws after a questionable fifth-foul was whistled on Felix Okpara.
Mashack’s free throws with 14 seconds left iced the game.
Lanier added only two more points after the quick start while Okpara pulled down a game-high nine rebounds.
Auburn’s Johni Broome led all scorers with 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds, but was only 5-for-12 at the foul line.
“Johni did a great job inside, just dominating inside, earned those foul shots that he got,” Pearl said. “Obviously he struggled at the free-throw line.”
Tiger guards Miles Kelly and Denver Jones had 13 points and 10 points, respectively, but Jones made just 1-of-6 shots overall and 1-of-5 from beyond the arc. Tahaad Pettiford went 0-for-8 from the field and 0-for-5 from distance.
“Tennessee was playing drop coverage,” explained Pearl. “We had our point guards, Denver and Tahaad, were combined 1-10 from the three. Most of them were decent looks. We're usually going to make those. Johni had one assist, that's because we didn't bang shots we've normally made.
“And Tennessee's guards are elite. They're great, great guards. They do a great job of closing out a little quicker.”
The loss by Auburn is the third in its last four games, but neither coach believes that or Saturday’s loss will knock the Tigers off the one-seed line.
“I believe that this team has from start to finish done enough to be the No. 1 overall seed in this tournament,” said Pearl. “Our résumé is historically one of the strongest résumés in the history of college basketball with the number of quad one wins we've had. Certainly losing to Tennessee as a team ranked fifth or sixth in the country is not necessarily shouldn't knock us off that spot.”
Did Tennessee’s win or would a Volunteer victory over the Gators send a message loud enough to the NCAA Selection Committee to move the Big Orange to the one-line?
“I don't think they're listening, you know? I think they're sequestered somewhere,” smiled Barnes
“I think we let our body of work speak for it. Again, I look at our league, I'll be disappointed if we don't have 14 teams in the NCAA tournament. I think it's obvious that Auburn and Florida have played themselves into a 1 seed, which they should.
“But again, I don't think they listen, so they're going to do what they think they need to do.”
Tennessee and Florida split their regular season schedule with both teams winning convincingly on their home floor. The Volunteers seek to a win a second SEC Tournament title in four years after taking the crown in 2022.
TENNESSEE (70) – Igor Milicic, Jr. 3-5 0-0 7, Felix Okpara 0-1 0-0 0, Chaz Lanier 5-13 0-0 12, Zakai Zeigler 5-11 9-9 20, Jahmai Mashack 0-1 6-8 6, Jordan Gainey 3-8 8-8 15, Darlinstone Dubar 2-3 2-2 6, Cade Phillips 2-5 0-0 4, Totals 20-47 25-27 70.
AUBURN (65) – Chad Baker-Mazara 4-9 0-0 9, Johni Broome 9-13 5-12 23, Dylan Cardwell 3-4 1-2 7, Denver Jones 1-6 7-8 10, Miles Kelly 5-11 0-0 13, Tahaad Pettiford 0-8 0-0 0, Chaney Johnson 1-3 0-0 3, Chris Moore 0-1 0-0 0, Ja’Heim Hudson 0-0 0-0 0, Totals 23-55 13-22 65.
Halftime: Tennessee 33-32. Three-Pointers – Tennessee 5-19 (Milicic, Jr. 1-2, Lanier 2-6, Zeigler 1-6, Gainey 1-4, Dubar 0-1), Auburn 6-21 (Baker-Mazara 1-2, Jones 1-5, Kelly 3-8, Pettiford 0-5, Johnson 1-1). Rebounds – Tennessee 35 (Okpara 9, Gaine 5, Lanier 4, Zeigler 4), Auburn 27 (Broome 7, Cardwell 5). Assists – Tennessee 7 (Zeigler 4), Auburn 13 (Baker-Mazara 3, Jones 3). Steals – Tennessee 5 (Okpara 2, Mashack 2), Auburn 6 (Broome 2, Kelly 2). Turnovers – Tennessee 11, Auburn 6. Points Off Turnovers – Tennessee 11, Auburn 16. Paint Points – Tennessee 28, Auburn 28. Second-Chance Points – Tennessee 10, Auburn 11. Bench Points – Tennessee 25, Auburn 3. Total Fouls – Tennessee 18, Auburn 21. Technical Fouls – Ziegler, Tennessee; Kelly, Auburn.
