Vols face tall task against No. 13 Auburn

Tennessee basketball faces another daunting task with a road matchup with 13th-ranked Auburn on Saturday.

It’s been tough sledding for Tennessee basketball lately. The Vols are losers of five of their last eight games.

Yet somehow, Tennessee’s March Madness hopes have not been extinguished. The Vols tournament hopes might be a tiny flame right now, but the fire still burns.

But to have any chance of receiving an at-large bid, tomorrow’s game at #13 Auburn is essentially a must-win for Tennessee.

While this would normally be a tough ask of an extremely inconsistent team, Auburn is currently in the midst of a two-game losing streak after losing star Isaac Okoro to injury.

“We know Auburn is down a player, but welcome to that club,” head coach Rick Barnes said on Thursday. “We have been there all year, too.”

The two teams that just knocked off Auburn aren’t exactly SEC powerhouses, either. Instead, Auburn lost to Missouri by 12 and Georgia by 10, two teams below Tennessee in the standings with virtually no tournament hopes.

Okoro, a freshman forward who will likely be a lottery pick in the NBA Draft this June, has missed back-to-back games with a hamstring injury. Without Okoro, Auburn will turn to their trio of seniors: Samir Doughty, J'Von McCormick, and Austin Wiley.

Tennessee will need to stop Auburn’s interior attack if they want to have a chance on Saturday.

Though they don’t shoot the outside shot as well as hear ago, the Tigers still present an array of challenges for the Vols on offensive end.

“They’re different than they were a year ago, they’re not making normally as many threes as they made,” Barnes said. “They’re relying more on an inside game and a mid-range game… They’re more of an inside-out team than they were last year.”

Tennessee’s interior defense will start with Yves Pons. The 6-foot-6 junior wing is the SEC’s leading shotblocker and currently ranks second on UT’s single season block list with five regular season games left to play. Pons has 66 blocks in 26 games so far this season, with the most blocks per game in program history.

A win for the Vols would snap a three-game losing streak against Auburn and give Tennessee its third AP Top 25 win of the season. 

It would also keep Tennessee at the very edge of the March Madness at-large bubble.

With road games at Auburn, Arkansas, and Kentucky and home games with Auburn and Florida left on the schedule, Tennessee has potential quality wins left on the table to help them sneak into an at-large bid, b their inconsistent play so far this season means there is little margin for error. 

That road starts tomorrow, in what is essentially a must-win game. 

Tip-off is at noon ET.