Tigers top Vols
Tennessee’s Jordan Bone (0) shoots over Auburn’s Bryce Brown during Tuesday night’s game. Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl downplayed the personal impact of earning his first victory at Tennessee since his own sixyear stint with the Volunteers.
at Thompson-Boling Arena. He’s in his fourth season at Auburn and trying to help the Tigers earn their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2003.
Auburn hasn’t finished above 11th in the SEC standings in each of Pearl’s first three seasons but has garnered some respect with its fast start this year.
“To be honest with you, we actually expected to do this,” Brown said. “We knew we were going to have a lot of people doubt us, but this is what we expected. This is what we wanted to do, and this is our goal. We wanted to open up people’s eyes. Hopefully we did that today.”
Tennessee (9-4, 0-2) squandered an early 28-14 lead and has lost two consecutive games for the first time this season. Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes said his team got outworked and was “awful” defensively.
“I think we’re too casual,” Barnes said. “I thought tonight we played like a very casual, immature basketball team.”
Auburn withstood a career-high 25 points from Tennessee’s Lamonte Turner, who made all 13 of his free-throw attempts before fouling out. Grant Williams added 22 points, Jordan Bone had 18 and Admiral Schofield scored 13 for Tennessee.
Mustapha Heron scored 16 and Chuma Okeke added 11 for Auburn. Horace Spencer had 10 points and nine rebounds.
In a game that featured 10 lead changes in the second half alone, Auburn heated up from 3-point range to pull away down the stretch.
Auburn had missed its first nine 3-point shots of the second half before making five of its last six attempts from beyond the arc. Four of those three-pointers came during a 2 1/2-minute span that essentially decided the game.
Brown sank the first three-pointer to extend Auburn’s lead to 69-65 with 5:48 left. Williams converted a conventional three-point play to cut the margin to 6968 with 5:26 remaining, but Auburn continued its threepoint flurry during an 11-0 run that put the game away.
FLORIDA 83,
NO. 11 TEXAS A&M 66
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Egor Koulechov scored 19 points and Keith Stone added 18 as Florida (10-4, 2-0 SEC) built a big lead early and cruised to a victory over No. 11 Texas A&M (11-3, 0-2).
The short-handed Aggies, who were playing without three starters, dropped their second consecutive game after starting the season 11-1 and rising to No. 5 in the poll. This was A&M’s second lopsided loss in a row after a 79-57 defeat at Alabama on Saturday.
The Gators made 17 three-pointers, led by five from Koulechov and four from Stone to win their fourth consecutive game.
KeVaughn Allen (North Little Rock) added seven points for the Gators.
Texas A&M was led by Jay Jay Chandler’s 17 points on a night the team was missing Admon Gilder, who missed his fourth straight game with a knee injury, and Duane Wilson who also sat out with a knee injury. Leading scorer D.J. Hogg, who is averaging 14.6 points a game, served the last game of a three-game suspension for an undisclosed team rules violation.
VANDERBILT 76, ALABAMA 75
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Saben Lee scored 23 points and Jeff Roberson had 17 and Vanderbilt won its SEC home opener over Alabama.
Matthew Fisher-Davis scored 11 points for the Commodores (6-8, 1-1 SEC), who recorded their 14th victory in the last 15 games against the Crimson Tide (9-5, 1-1) at Memorial Gym.
Vanderbilt has made 51 shots from three-point range in its last four games, including 10 against Alabama.
Freshman Collin Sexton, who entered the game as the SEC’s second-leading scorer, led the Tide with 24 points.
His layup with 6.2 seconds left narrowed the deficit to 76-75 and his desperation three-point attempt from inside half-court bounced off the glass at the buzzer.
Sexton dished out five assists and hit all seven of his foul shots. Donta Hall added 14 for Alabama, which upset then No. 5 Texas A&M in its SEC opener on Saturday.