AUBURN, Ala. — Tennessee led Auburn in the final minute, but Miles Kelly’s go-ahead 3-pointer with 30 seconds left allowed the No. 1 Tigers to escape the No. 6 Vols, 53-51 Saturday at Neville Arena.

Chaz Lanier put Tennessee (17-3, 4-3 SEC) in front and the Vols led by as much as four before Auburn (19-1, 6-0) took the lead for good. Zakai Zeigler’s game-winning corner three-point attempt missed off the iron and the Tigers ran the clock out to cap off the most anticipated game of the weekend.

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Zeigler paced Tennessee with 14 points and Lanier had 10, but it was defense that headlined the match up.

Both teams combined for just seven 3-pointers and shot no better than 31% from the field, going back-and-forth until Auburn landed the final blow on its home floor to inch closer to the SEC title.

Here is everything Vols head coach Rick Barnes said about the performance.

“I think (Auburn) made a block (on Milicic), but again, he was aggressive, took it there. And it’s a high-level game. Both teams, I thought, played extremely hard both ways and really not much to be had easily on the offensive end. But proud of our guys. I thought they fought all night long. And we went through just a couple minutes where we didn’t quite stick to the details and gave them a few baskets that we wouldn’t want to give them. But they did it. They executed and we didn’t. But I don’t have a problem Igor trying to be aggressive right there.”

“(Lanier) is going to have to, again, continue to move, cut, get open. And if he doesn’t get some separation, we’re not going to be able to scream for him. And because when guys are up against you, I said last game, it’s not just us everywhere. I mean, freedom of movement is pretty much gone in the game. And again, I think when somebody downs you, they really put you in, it really gives you the advantage if you know how to set your man up and take advantage of it. And we’ve talked about it a lot with him. He’ll keep doing it. But again, it’s one, you got to give Auburn, anybody we play, credit. Because they’re going to look at statistics and numbers and go back and see games that maybe didn’t score as well and they’re just going to kind of copy it sometimes. But it’s up to us as coaches and him to understand the adjustments that he’s got to make to get open.”

“(Gainey) hadn’t practiced since last game. And he came in and obviously we quarantined him. But I’m proud of Jordan because I know he wasn’t feeling great. Even throughout the trip, he ate at a table by himself. We just tried to keep him away from the team as much as we could. And again, I give Chad (Newman) a lot of credit to try to just get him as healthy as he could. But I was proud of him. I thought, whether he was sick or not, he never complained about it one time. I thought he played as hard as he could play.”

“There was no doubt in our mind (Broome) was going to play. We knew he was going to play. So we prepared all week for him to be there.”

“I love (this team). I told our guys, you know what, we can get so much better too. That’s what I learned tonight. And again, we battled a great basketball team and a team that is extremely well coached and I didn’t think the crowd affected us. And I give that credit to our older guys, especially Mashack. I mean, he’s the only guy that played here, on this team. No one else on our team had been in this building. Zakai (Zeigler) that was the year he got hurt and I mean, Zakai was just, what can I say about him? Just what he does and how he plays and he’s such a heartbeat of our team and what he does. But I’m just proud of every guy. I just thought that we came in and battled the No. 1 ranked team in the country. Took it down to the last possession with a chance to win it.”

“We need it from our frontline. We need it because people are going to push us out there. We need our frontline. And, again, I think Felix (Okpara) has worked his butt off. I mean he just does so many good things for us, but we need to get more point production out of the front line.”

I get it. I mean, (Mashack) is so competitive that he really is one of those guys that when he locks in, he just wants to keep somebody from getting a shot off and obviously not a great play there when he fouled the three-point shooter but it’s hard to back him off because he’s just, that’s who he is and he just takes it personal in terms of wanting to guard people. But again, he’s one of those guys that I’m just glad he’s on our team.”

“I thought (Okpara) was held. I mean, it’s a physical game and I just don’t think from what I saw, I thought he had two hands on his shoulders and can’t— I don’t know what we can do and I thought we should have did a better job getting it in, but they do a really good job in those situations too. But I think he traveled, but I don’t think you can put two hands on somebody’s shoulders. That’s what my (assistant) coaches told me was they saw, when they looked at it well before the game was over and maybe it didn’t, it didn’t happen. He traveled. He definitely traveled. Whether he had help doing it, you have to look at it. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“I think it’s really hard to do it. And I think you see that really with say, I thought Cade (Phillips) for a (sophomore) really handled himself well. I did. Igor (Milicic) and (Darlinstone Dubar) are guys that they’re important to us, but I think this was an experience for them. I think they’ll learn from it and it goes back, and I told the team, we got a chance to be so much better. I think we can get better, but we’ve gotta get better as individuals. Every one of us as coaches, every player. But I just know that we’re just coming to the end of January and a lot of basketball left. We want to be our best at the end of the year. We’ve got guys that I know are gonna continue to work to try to do that.”

“I should be positive. They fought hard all night long. Were we perfect? No, we weren’t perfect. Like I said, (we) went through a couple situations where details, like for instance, one time Igor goes over to double team which has gotta be a called play and that’s just him wanting to win, wanting to make a play, but we got burnt on it. You can’t do that in those situations. And that’s, I think, lack of experience in games like this because when you’re in a possession game, you just can’t go and say, I’m gonna go make something here. Especially when, I mean they’re an older team, they know how to take advantage of those kinds of mistakes, which they did on that play. But that’s the things that we can get so much better with.”

“I thought Cade did (played well in the first half). I thought he came out, I’ve said before he’s tough, he’s going to battle, he’s going to do what he does. And that’s all we ask for. We just want effort every night. We believe in our defense. We struggle at times like every team in the country struggles to score at times. It’s not just (us). It’s everybody. Tonight was a hard game. I mean both these teams played hard and (there were) not many looks out there (that were) free ones. And when you’re used to being guarded at a high level like both teams guard and you finally do get a little bit of separation, you’re almost looking over your shoulder like where’s he coming from? And it makes it difficult to maybe even make open shots. You think about the ones that were made, it was where a guy really had a pretty good chance of lining it up and go after it. But Cade has got a great future for us and again, we love him because he’s a high-level competitor.”

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