Bruce Pearl calls out Auburn's defense in loss to Tennessee

Auburn did just about enough to win in Knoxville in a Top-15 matchup on Wednesday. They took an eight-point loss, though, because they didn’t get enough stops to leave Rocky Top with a victory.

Bruce Pearl critiqued his Tigers’ defense early in his postgame press conference following their 92-84 loss to Tennessee last night. Considering what they did offensively and what was on the line, they should have had done a sufficient amount to leave victorious. Still, they didn’t considering the way that the defense went.

“We score 84 points on the road, playing for a championship. That ‘ought to be enough to win,” said Pearl. “Our defense definitely let us down.”

The 92 for Tennessee was tied for their second-most of the campaign. It was also the most points that Auburn had allowed all year. The Volunteers did so by shooting 50.9% from the field, including 52.9% from three, and making 27 of 35 free throws. The Tigers weren’t too far behind as far as offensive output themselves but, nonetheless, the lack of defense led them to lose the shootout inside Thompson-Boling.

Most of that scoring from Tennessee came via Dalton Knecht, the leading scorer in the SEC. He exploded for a career-high tying 39 points as he made a dozen shots with five threes and then 10 free throws. 25 of those came over the final 12:01 in the game.

Pair that outing with the penetration from another Volunteer and Pearl was displeased with those two aspects at least.

“Obviously, Dalton was terrific. He was really hard to stop one-on-one,” said Pearl. “He made a lot of tough shots, a lot of shots that were contested.”

“Probably disappointed in two things,” Pearl explained. “One, when (Knecht) went downhill, I thought there were times when we could have offered more resistance, more help off the ball. We didn’t. Then I thought that (Zakai) Zeigler getting downhill against us was a huge factor.”

Auburn was 18-1 when scoring 80-plus points this season with the lone loss coming in the opener to Baylor. That included a 9-0 mark when doing so in conference play with an average margin of victory of 22.8 points per game. Based on that, 80 or so points should have been enough for the Tigers offensively.

Still, it wasn’t as they nearly lost this one by double figures. That’s because their defense didn’t do what they needed to in order for that offensive total to be enough for them in the end.

“We had some pretty good balance,” Pearl said. “I mean we score 84 points in here? We should be able to win.”