No. 12 Tennessee falls at Auburn, 79-70

AUBURN, Ala. —  Tennessee might need Santiago Vescovi to do everything after Zakai Zeigler’s season ended with a torn ACL earlier this week. Vescovi did it all for the Vols Saturday afternoon at Auburn, but it still wasn’t enough in a 79-70 loss at Neville Arena.

Vescovi scored with 6:13 left to put Tennessee up 63-60, but Auburn answered with a 12-1 run and the Vols didn’t hit a shot from the floor over the final six minutes.

Vescovi scored his 21 points on 8-for-13 shooting from the field, going 5-for-9 from the 3-point line to lead Tennessee (22-9, 11-7 SEC). Tyreke Key scored 13, returning after missing two games with a right ankle injury, and Josiah-Jordan James and Julian Phillips added 10 each.

Vescovi hit a go-ahead three at the 7:32 mark, giving the Vols a 59-58 lead after helping dig them out of a six-point hole. His jumper with 6:13 left to extend the lead to three was the last points the Vols scored from the field.

The Auburn lead was six with 3:14 left after an Allen Flanagan three-point play, making it a 9-0 run. Wendell Green Jr. converted his own three-point play with 1:37 to go, building the lead to eight and extending Auburn’s run to 12-1.

Auburn (20-11, 10-8) was led 22 from Green and 17 from Johni Broome. Flanagan finished with 16 and Jaylin Williams had 13.

Auburn started the second half on a 10-2 run — it was a 13-2 run bridging halftime — to build a four-point lead, matching its biggest of the game at the time, when Broome hit a three at the 17:31 mark.

The lead stretched to six on a Green jumper with 8:56 left, but Vescovi answered with a jumper of his own and Phillips hit two free throws to get it back to a one-possession game at the media timeout with 7:43 to go.

Vols led by as many as seven in the first half

Tennessee led 34-30 at halftime after Green got a corner three to fall as the buzzer sounded to end the first half. 

The Vols led by as many as seven points and were ahead for just over 10 minutes in the first half. Vescovi scored 11 points on 4-for-7 shooting from the field, including 3-for-5 from the 3-point line, to pace Tennessee in the opening half. 

Olivier Nkamhoua had seven points and James scored five while the Vols shot 50.0 percent from the field (14-28) and 62.5 percent from the 3-point line, going 5-for-8 from deep in the first half.

Green had nine points and Jaylin Williams and Johni Broome had six each in the first half.

Up Next: SEC Tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville

With the regular-season schedule wrapped up, Tennessee now turns its attention to the SEC Tournament March 8-13 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The Vols entered Saturday with possibilities of being anything from the No. 3 seed to the No. 6 seed in the bracket.

The last four teams in the regular-season standings open the tournament on Wednesday night, then the 5-10 seeds play Thursday. The top-four teams in the standings receive a double-bye into the quarterfinal round on Friday.

Tennessee started the day fourth in the standings, but could’ve bumped up to a No. 3 with a win at Auburn and a Kentucky loss at Arkansas. A Tennessee loss at Auburn paired with a Missouri and/or Vanderbilt win on Saturday — Missouri hosted Ole Miss Saturday afternoon and Vanderbilt plays Mississippi State at home Saturday night — would bump the Vols down to either a No. 5 or a No. 6 seed.

The Vols won the SEC Tournament at Amalie Arena in Tampa last March, the program’s first conference tournament title since 1979. Tennessee went through Mississippi State, Kentucky and Texas A&M over the course of three days on the way to cutting down the nets.