What Bruce Pearl said after No. 11 Auburn's 92-84 loss at No. 4 Tennessee

What head coach Bruce Pearl said after No. 11 Auburn’s 92-84 loss at No. 4 Tennessee on Wednesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville:

Opening Statement

“Well, congratulated Coach Barnes after the game and I told him I hope he wins the league. That’s OK for an Auburn coach to say because he’s got the game the game of the year, I guess, Saturday at Alabama. You score 84 points on the road, playing for a championship, that ought to be enough to win. Our defense definitely let us down. And obviously Dalton (Knecht) was terrific and he was really hard to stop. 

“One, he made a lot of tough shots, a lot of shots that were contested … when he went downhill, I thought there were times when we could have offered more resistance, more help off the ball. We didn’t. And then I thought that, I thought (Zakai) Zeigler getting downhill against us was a huge factor. Johni Broome did everything he possibly could offensively and we had some pretty good balance. You score 84 points, should be enough.”

If you allow one player to go off like that and try to stop everyone else in a game like that, or how to approach it defensively

“I mean, we set the double a couple times. We got a turnover. we set a double and one time we passed out of it and they got a dunk. I think that felt like we had guys that could guard him. And when Tennessee wins, they typically win when everybody contributes, right? And tonight he sort of dispelled that.”

If he thinks Dalton Knecht is the SEC Player of the Year

“What I’ve always done and what I’ve always believed in is I’ve voted for the best player on the best team. So if Tennessee wins the league, he’ll get my vote for sure. If Alabama wins the league, I’m going to vote for Mark Sears. I typically just have always voted for the best player, the best team.”

Auburn’s offense not making any shots the final couple minutes, what went wrong there

“I think you’ve asked and answered it. I mean, I didn’t think our last two minutes of offense cost us the game. I’ll go back and look at it. I think they followed us a bunch, right? So we’re shooting once. I mean we might have taken one bad shot the last two minutes of the game. Whatever it was. 

Auburn shooting it well away from home

“I mean, we made nine, right? We shot 40%, scored 84 points. I can’t really fault our offense. I just can’t. We did turn the ball over too much. We definitely turned it over too much. And you know, to have 20 assists on 27 buckets, it’s pretty good. It’s pretty good basketball.”

What went well for Auburn early in the second half, going from down nine points to up by eight over a span of seven minutes 

“Well, we got some stops. Dalton was, at that point, Dalton hadn’t just caught fire. And they weren’t turning us over, so we were getting really good looks. And I kind of thought that was going be the way the game would continue. I just liked the way we were playing. I don’t know what the score was, but I think (Knecht) getting hot was about the time when we may have had our biggest lead. Again, hey, at the end of the day what you got to do is just tip your cap, just tip your cap.”

Where Dalton Knecht compares to other standout players in the history of the Tennessee basketball program

“Well, with his size and the versatility there, I just can’t think of anybody quite like it. But just like anything, like what we’re trying to do at Auburn is, if they win the league, if they advance in the tournament, he’ll have a chance to go down as one of the all-time greats. At the end of the day, he knows that as a great individual, if this team can make a run, then they’ll be talking about him for a long time.” 

What made Auburn’s Johni Broome so effective 

“He’s a handful down there. He’s a handful. He got, fouled every time we throw it (to him). And he’s a confident player and I trust him. And he’s clearly one of the best players in the league. He one of the best centers in the country.”

How important it was to have Jaylin Williams return from injury for Auburn in that game

“Yeah, we thought that, in other words, we were looking at 10 days to two weeks, right? So this was the 10-day window right here. It was. So he practiced this week and he looked pretty good and he was ready to go. We didn’t start him. My guess was, I thought he (would play) about 15 minutes, but you know, we’re playing for a championship and he was playing well.”