Auburn is tough, but Tennessee basketball was 'relentless' in SEC Tournament win | Estes

For Saturday’s SEC Tournament semifinal against top-seeded Auburn, the locker room at Bridgestone Arena used by Tennessee basketball was near the one that houses the NHL's Nashville Predators.

So the Vols' walk to the court was the same path the Predators take to the ice, going under large signage visible atop a doorway just before a left turn past the Lexus Lounge.

One word in scripted lettering:

Relentless.

While Nashville’s hockey team has often failed to personify that this season, the Vols sure did Saturday.

It was the difference in a semifinal that was everything you’d have expected between two outstanding teams that each spent a chunk of time ranked atop the national polls this season. Tennessee’s 70-65 victory was its most impressive result in a season full of them.

What a game, huh? Edge-of-your-seat stuff. Back and forth and skilled and entertaining and emotional and chippy and ultimately the kind of contest that perfectly demonstrated what Vols coach Rick Barnes means when he says: “It’s not about schemes this time of year.”

Auburn was tough. But Tennessee was tougher. More relentless.

As “visiting” team, Tennessee gets the Lexus Lounge entrance today for the SEC Tourney semifinal against Auburn.

Here’s what the Vols will walk under:#Preds pic.twitter.com/1umqGABaUi
— Gentry Estes (@Gentry_Estes) March 15, 2025

Differences were subtle, but they showed up when it mattered.

It was a 35-27 rebounding edge for Tennessee, with Felix Okpara — who didn’t score — pulling a game-high nine boards. It was Jordan Gainey’s 15 points to help the Vols to a 25-3 advantage in bench points, a nice boost when both teams played the previous day.

It was the Vols not flinching after the Tigers’ late 10-0 run, never surrendering the lead entering the final minutes, allowing Auburn only one field goal in the final 3:24.

It was Tennessee’s diminutive talisman Zakai Zeigler, the toughest of them all. After struggling at the foul line in Friday’s win over Texas, Zeigler went 9-for-9 against Auburn, scoring 20 massive points in 35 minutes and even blocking a shot.

It was Auburn’s gifted national player of the year candidate Johni Broome, who scored 23 and was unstoppable at times Saturday, missing two critical free throws with 29.2 seconds remaining and the Tigers down three points. Broome was a costly 5-for-12 at the foul line. Overall, Auburn was 13-for-22 on free throws; Tennessee was 25-for-27. There's your game right there.

But it was also Auburn’s underrated big man Dylan Cardwell limping off in crunch time with leg cramps. And then it was Tennessee’s Jahmai Mashack, after Broome’s misses, getting inadvertently smacked in the face while being fouled on a long inbounds pass.

Mashack collected himself, stayed in the game and walked to the foul line with 14 seconds left.

Swish. Swish. Ballgame.

They call that walking the walk:

“They're going to compete just like we're going to compete,” Mashack said Friday when looking ahead to this rematch with Auburn. “But the goal for us is to compete harder. That's what we do.”

Yup, it is. Didn’t just learn that about Barnes' program. As Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said again Saturday about his old program and has before: “They play the right way.”

“It’s character. It’s culture. It’s their faith. It’s the men that are coaching them,” Pearl said. “ . . . The games are physical, because they are physical on offense, they are physical setting screens, and they are physical defensively. But when I say they play the right way, there’s no issues. There’s no extracurricular. You understand how they play. You respect how they play. They respect how we play.

“That’s from their head coach.”

At his postgame news conference, Pearl argued his Tigers should be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, and there’s still a good chance they will be. If the Vols manage to get through scorching-hot Florida (and that’s a big if) in Sunday’s SEC final, they’ll have a strong case for a No. 1 seed, too, which would be the first time they have ever carried a No. 1 seed into the Big Dance.

Pearl never did that in Knoxville. Barnes hasn’t yet, either.

But win or lose Sunday, in this season where the SEC stands atop the sport and both Pearl and Barnes have played a leading role, there’s something Tennessee fans can feel awfully good about as another NCAA Tournament arrives for a program still yearning for more success on the biggest stage:

If these Vols can handle the Tigers at a neutral site, who can't they beat?

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Auburn was tough. Tennessee basketball was tougher in SEC Tournament

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