What Bruce Pearl said after No. 1 Auburn's 53-51 win over No. 6 Tennessee

AUBURN, Ala. — What Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said during his postgame press conference after his No. 1-ranked Tigers rallied in the final minute to beat No. 6 Tennessee 53-51 at Neville Arena Saturday night:

Opening Statement 

“You know I got asked by Andy during the pregame show, ‘What exactly do you mean when you compliment Rick Barnes and talk about the way his teams play?’ And my guys, I’m sure you heard it from either Miles or Johni, but our guys really respected that team, even after the game. They knew they had a great win because they beat a great team. 

“Those are some of the best guards we’re going to face. Those guys don’t take possessions off defensively. Catches were difficult. Shots were contested. They turned us over 11 times. They were all forced. I’m sure that wasn’t a very pretty game on national television because it was so difficult to score. I knew it was going to be low scoring. I just knew offense was going to difficult. 

“But Rick Barnes’ teams play the right way. They don’t take possessions off. They don’t beat themselves. I think at the end of the game, both teams were exhausted. Absolutely exhausted. So who, through that exhaustion, could make a shot or maybe make a play? I thought Miles Kelly had a couple big shots for us in the second half. Tahaad (Pettiford) came in there and kind of gave us a spark offensively, which he obviously does.

“And I just want to thank my trainers and doctors and Johni Broome for living in the training room for two weeks. I did not think he was going to come back tonight in the middle of the week. And even here the day before. I knew he wanted to go, I didn’t know he was going to be able to be effective … I think the team really respected their leader for putting it on the line. And obviously I don’t know that we win if he doesn’t come back.””The last thing is that we’ve won four games now in the last possession — four of the last six. Last year, we had 20 wins by double-digits. And, so, whether this team is better or not or whatever we are, this league is better. And, so, it’s gonna be a battle every night. But we are happy with this one, because that’s a great team.”

If he thought Miles Kelly was going to make the go-ahead three with 30 seconds left

“Yeah. No doubt. I had no doubt it was going in. Absolutely no doubt, and neither did anybody in this building, neither did any of his teammates. He hit a big shot coming off a pin-down too about five or six minutes earlier. So, offense was tough.”

The defense Auburn played to get stops on the final two possessions

“Maddux Jeffreys is my director of basketball operations, but like many on our staff, they play multiple roles. Maddux is in charge of special teams, under-basket out-of-bounds situations, bot offensively, defensively, side out-of-bound situations, offensively, defensively and pressure sets. And if you want to look at one of the areas I think people compliment our basketball program on is that we’re good in special teams, special situations, and Maddux really studies that. He had the play drawn up, and they ran exactly what we thought (they) would run.

“Now, taking whatever away, obviously, they drove down the slot, Chaney got vertical. There was contact. I’ll have to look at it, but he made a heck of a defensive play, and tough 2s were tough to come by at both ends.”

Auburn wining a close game at home

“I just don’t think you can get too high or too low. I think the big key is you just can’t get too high or too low. I talked to the team a lot tonight about how we would have felt if we lost. We have not felt the pain of losing in a while, right? When was the lost time we lost? Duke? What was the last game we lost this year? When did we play them? Early December? It’s been a while. We’re obviously not going to like what that tastes like, but it’s gonna happen, and it obviously almost happened tonight. So we’ve got to get better. I’ve got to do a better job. I’ve got to do a better job.

“The book is out on everybody. Why was it so difficult to score? We know what they do. They know what we do. We put players in good positions. They put their players in good positions. What’s plan B? What’s plan C? And we got to come up with that.”

Auburn slowing down Zakai Zeigler and Chaz Lanier

“Well, you know, Ziegler plays the whole game, virtually. So at the end of the day, it’s just a battle of attrition. They ask him to do a lot. He has to do a lot. I think the biggest thing would be … now he still had five assists and one turnover. Incredible. Just incredible. And Chaz Lanier is a guy you can’t leave or just got to make him put the ball down the floor and you’ve got to arrive and catch. And he made a couple, which was scary, but he had to work so hard defensively also. Mashack had to work hard.

“Our guys were exhausted. I told our guys before the game, I said, you’re going to be more tired after this game than any game we play all year long, because Tennessee, if you’re going to guard them, you’re going to wear yourself out guarding them. But at the same time, we didn’t have the kind of energy we needed to execute offensively either.”

Auburn winning multiple close games this season

“Well, I mean, we’ve won some close games now, and so I think we can learn, you know, something from them. I know we can play better. So I think … I think, look, I give Tennessee all the credit for how poorly we played at times. But the good thing is our guys are all feeling good knowing that we can play better, and we still were able to beat a great team. I think they’ve got to feel good about themselves.”

What he told his Auburn team with four minutes left in a close game

“I don’t know exactly with four minutes left. We needed stops. We need to continue to remind them that we’re in position in spite of all the things that have gone around. We’re right where we want to be. We’re just right where we want to be. We’ve got to get a couple of stops and get a couple of rebounds and then knock down a couple of shots. As simple as it is. And I don’t think the guys [rushed]. They never panicked.”

The rebounding battle between Tennessee and Auburn

“They only had 10 offensive rebounds, and we had 26 defensive rebounds, so that’s pretty great. That’s a great percentage, considering you’re playing that team. And we had 15 offensive rebounds. So we won the battle of the boards against a great rebounding team, and that was a factor.

“I would just say that our guys, we always respect Tennessee. Our individual players walked away really respecting their individual players. There were some really hard matchups out there. The game was physical, but it was clean.”

If he expected Johni Broome to play 33 minutes for Auburn

“I thought maybe 20 minutes. Maybe. Maybe. Definitely didn’t see him playing this much. Absolutely did not.”

If he talked to Johni Broome about minutes

“He was fine. I mean, he was fine. He was able to go. He was able to go. And he was not at any risk for injury, but he hasn’t practiced in two weeks. What was his conditioning gonna be like? So I was anticipating him playing, you know, just 20 minutes, but he’s a national player of the year candidate. He is arguably the best player on the floor every time he takes the floor in this league.”

Johni Broome’s toughness

“The big kid for Tennessee (Felix Okpara) is a great shot blocker, and he just did what he knew he had to do against Okpara, just bury him in there deep and not let him use his length. We got some really good inside touch on our basket OB’s. We had some really good insides. We needed every one of them.

“But I think what Johni did with his rehab all week and living with the trainers and the doctors and being able to come out and just affect winning so much. He just affects winning. All he cared about was winning. So I think as a leader, it’s another statement.”

Auburn’s Chaney Johnson scoring 10 points and getting four rebounds

“Yeah. He sure did. We thought Chaney had a real inside advantage. We really did. And he had those five two-point buckets. And those two-point buckets were hard to come by. We felt like we had some advantages on the front line. If you looked at the stat sheet and told me our guards were gonna shoot like that tonight, I’d say there’s no chance we win, because our guards have shot brilliantly all season long. And for really truly for none of our guards to shoot a good percentage, all the credit goes to Tennessee for the way they defended. But believe it or not, I expect a lot from Chaney. I think Chaney’s really good. I think Chaney’s better than he thinks he is. So he did really well tonight. He did. But honestly, he could do better. Like, he could do better.

“Wait till Chaney Johnson starts knocking down threes. And I’m calling it — like, I’m calling it right now. Wait till Chaney Johnson starts knocking down (threes). He can do it. And I do think we need him to start doing it to beat the best teams on our schedule.”