Tigers fall short in Knoxville

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Published Feb 28, 2024

Tigers fall short in Knoxville

Bryan Matthews • AuburnSports

Senior Editor

@BMattAU

Bruce Pearl said Auburn couldn’t let Dalton Knecht go off. That’s exactly what he did.

Knecht scored 27 of his 39 points in the second half to lead No. 4 Tennessee to a 92-84 win over the 11th-ranked Tigers Wednesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena.

“We did enough things to win the game,” AU coach Bruce Pearl told the Auburn Network. “We score 84 points on the road against a good defensive team like Tennessee, you should be able to win.

“Obviously, Knecht did a great job and he’s a great player. We knew he was capable of going off like that. He made a lot of tough shots. We couldn’t stop them defensively.”

The Volunteers used a late 11-5 run to pull away in the final minutes as AU failed to make a field goal over the final 2:53.

Auburn falls to 21-7 overall and 10-5 in the SEC.

“I’m proud of the kids,” said Pearl. “It was a really good contest by two really good teams, two teams that wanted to win it really badly.”

Tennessee led 44-40 at halftime on a 3-pointer by Zakai Zeigler, who also opened the second half with a 3-pointer as the Vols built a nine-point lead.

Auburn responded with a 23-6 run to take a 63-55 lead with 12:17 left before UT answered with a 14-6 run, including 11 by Knecht, to tie the game at 69-69 with 8:51 to go.

UT shot 50.9 percent from the floor, including Knecht’s 12 of 21, and 9 of 17 from 3-point range. AU shot 45.8 from the floor and made 9 of 22 3-pointers. UT out-rebounded AU 37-30 and scored 18 points off 16 AU turnovers.

“We had some really sloppy, unforced turnovers,” said Pearl. “We turned it over 10 times in the first half. My God, you can’t turn it over 10 times, and they weren’t forced turnovers. It’s just hard to win in that circumstance.”

Johni Broome led AU with 23 points, nine rebounds and five assists. Chad Baker-Mazara added 13 points, Denver Jones 11 and K.D. Johnson 10.

In his first game since suffering a knee injury against Kentucky Feb. 17, Jaylin Williams had 12 points, three rebounds and four assists.

Auburn hosts Mississippi State Saturday at 3 p.m. CT on either ESPN2 or ESPNU.