2/4/23 Auburn Articles

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Auburn vs. Tennessee: Stream, injury report, broadcast info for Saturday's game in Knoxville

Taylor Jones

2–3 minutes

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Auburn plays Tennessee on Saturday in Knoxville, and if you’re wondering how you can watch the action live, you’ve come to the right place.

The No. 23 Auburn Tigers bounced back from a two-game losing streak by defeating Georgia on Wednesday, 94-73. Allen Flanigan posted his highest scoring output in two seasons by dropping 22 points to lead the team in points. Johni Broome also had the best performance of his Auburn career by scoring 19 points and pulling down 18 rebounds.

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The No. 2 Volunteers dropped just their second SEC game of the season on Wednesday after Florida pulled off the 67-54 upset in Gainesville. Despite losing their most recent game, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl feels that Tennessee will be Auburn’s “tallest task” to date.

“Tennessee is the best defensive team in the country. Their numbers all speak to it as far as field goal percentage defense, their three-point percentage defense,” Pearl said. “In each of those categories, the Vols lead the SEC. They are No. 2 in the nation in scoring margin, plus 18 1/2 for all games. “They are very, very deep. They are very, very talented. They are well-coached. They are very physical. They are one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country.”

Below, you will find all of the information you need for Wednesday’s game in Auburn, including a how-to-watch guide, an injury report, and a projected starting five.

Here’s when you should tune in to see the game:

• Date: Saturday, Feb. 4
• Time: 1 p.m. CT
• TV Channel: ESPN
• Live Stream: fuboTV (watch here)
• Radio: Auburn Sports Network ()

John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

• Johni Broome
• Wendell Green Jr.
• Allen Flanigan

The Tennessean

• Oliver Nkamhoua
• Santiago Vescovi
• Zakai Zeigler

AUBURN
Chance Westry	Knee	Out for season
TENNESSEE
No Injuries Reported

AUBURN

G	Wendell Green Jr.
G	Zep Jasper
F	Allen Flanigan
F	Jaylin Williams
F	Johni Broome

TENNESSEE

G	Joshua Jordan James
G	Santiago Vescovi
G	Zakai Ziegler
F	Oliver Nkamhoua
F	Julian Phillips

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Auburn vs Tennessee Prediction, College Basketball Game Preview

By Pete Fiutak | February 4, 2023 12:33 am CT

~3 minutes

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Auburn vs Tennessee prediction, game preview, odds, how to watch. Saturday, February 4

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Auburn vs Tennessee How To Watch

Date: Saturday, February 4
Game Time: 2:00 ET
Venue: Thompson-Boling Arena, Knoxville, TN
How To Watch: ESPN
Record: Auburn (17-5), Tennessee (18-4)
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Auburn vs Tennessee Game Preview

Why Auburn Will Win

The defense continues to be terrific from the outside, and overall the team is built to hold up in defensive fights.

It’s great on the offensive boards, the D is aggressive enough to force just enough mistakes to get on the move, and stopping the Vols from getting the offense going shouldn’t be a problem.

Auburn is 12-0 when teams fail to hit 30% from three, and 15-1 when keeping teams to 36% or under. Tennessee has only gone past that eight times and it’s going to struggle to get the O going here, but …

Why Tennessee Will Win

The Vol defense is a killer.

It’s second in the nation in scoring defense and No. 1 in field goal percentage D. For all of the good things Auburn does, it’s not great at coming up with points from the outside and it’s not anything special on the free throw line.

In a game where scoring every point will be like pulling teeth, the little things will matter.

The defense is the star, but the offense is a huge help by not giving it up in bunches. Auburn is 13-1 when forcing 12 or more takeaways, and the Vols haven’t been that sloppy all that often at home.

What’s Going To Happen

Don’t expect a whole slew of points.

Auburn will be great on the boards and will hang with Tennessee punch for punch, but it’ll come down to hitting that key three to push ahead. The home side will get that – and hit a few more free throws – to get out in a fun one.

Auburn vs Tennessee Prediction, Line

Tennessee 66, Auburn 63
Line: Tennessee -9.5, o/u: 134.5
ATS Confidence out of 5: 3
Must See Ranking: 4
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Auburn's Chance Westry faces 'very real possibility' of a medical redshirt

Published: Feb. 03, 2023, 8:00 a.m.

5–6 minutes

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Four-star Auburn freshman Chance Westry is potentially headed for a medical redshirt this season.

Bruce Pearl was asked Thursday night about the status of Westry, who hasn’t appeared in a game since Jan. 4 at Georgia, during the coach’s weekly appearance on the “Tiger Talk” radio show. According to Pearl, Auburn has shut Westry down for the season due to a lingering right knee issue, and as a result, there’s a possibility the 6-foot-6 guard/wing will redshirt this season.

“Listen, he had surgery, he came back, and he just couldn’t really move on that thing, wasn’t the same player as he was before,” Pearl said. “So, yes, we did shut him down. It’s a very, very real possibility that he could redshirt this year.”

Read more Auburn basketball: Auburn to play in 2024 Maui Invitational, per report

Bruce Pearl saw Allen Flanigan’s season-best performance against Georgia coming

Auburn lands five-star 2024 point guard Tahaad Pettiford

For a player to qualify for a medical redshirt under NCAA rules, a player’s injury must occur before the second half of a team’s season, and he must have competed in less than 30 percent of a team’s games. Westry has played in 11 games this season after missing the first two games after undergoing preseason knee surgery. Auburn has 31 games on its regular-season slate, and while that means Westry will have appeared in approximately 35 percent of the Tigers’ regular-season games, Auburn will have postseason games in the SEC Tournament and likely the NCAA Tournament.

That 30 percent threshold appears to be why Westry’s redshirt is still considered a “very, very real possibility” and not a lock at this point.

The versatile guard/wing is one of three true freshmen on Auburn’s roster this year after signing with the Tigers as part of their 2022 class. Westry was rated as the No. 39 overall player in the country coming out of high school, and upon arriving at Auburn, he quickly established himself as one of the team’s top playmakers this summer during the program’s overseas tour of Israel.

However, he injured his knee during the preseason, reaggravating a prior injury in which “his kneecap kind of dislocates,” according to Pearl. After first attempting to rehab it for nearly a month to no avail, Westry opted to undergo arthroscopic surgery on Oct. 6 — the same day Pearl had a similar procedure done on his knee. Renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews performed the procedures, with Westry projected to miss 3-4 weeks before being cleared to return.

His return took a bit longer than that, with the freshman making his long-anticipated debut almost six weeks later against Winthrop on Nov. 15 at Neville Arena. Westry appeared in each of the Tigers’ ensuing 10 games, including the first two in SEC play against Florida and Georgia — though he recorded just one minute of action in each of his last three appearances off the bench, as he struggled to return to form after missing much of the preseason.

He averaged just 2.5 points and one assist in 9.5 minutes per game while shooting just 31.6 percent from the floor during his 11 appearances.

“Chance Westry offensively was, if not the, one of our best guards this summer,” Pearl said Jan. 13. “So, he did a great job coming in, did a great job as a freshman. Then the very beginning of the semester, he hurts his knee…. He comes back, and maybe I make the mistake of trying to play him at some point guard, but that was where there may have only been 10 minutes a game, and he wasn’t ready. He’s more ready now, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to put him in right now. It’s just hard to miss all that time, miss all those reps, and then I’m going to put him in right now in the middle of the SEC?

“So, Chance has done nothing wrong. He’s done a lot of things right. I have not lost one ounce of confidence, and I’m confident that in a year from now, he’ll be one of our better players. But unless something dramatic changes with our roster, I just think I need to protect him from being out there where the guys have had so many more repetitions, it’s just not fair.”

While Westry’s injury has certainly been disappointing for the freshman and a tough blow for Auburn this season, Pearl’s expressed confidence in Westry’s long-term outlook and the support from within the program has the freshman maintaining perspective throughout the ordeal.

“Just keep going,” Westry said in a Q&A posted to Auburn’s team site on Jan. 16. “You’re going to have ups and downs. You can’t have a great story without ups and downs. I know I’m going to have my ups and I know I’m going to have my downs, but at the end, it’s going to be a great story.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.

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What Rick Barnes said about loss to Florida, hosting Auburn

Ben McKee

10–13 minutes

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Tennessee head basketball coach Rick Barnes met with the media on Friday afternoon to review the loss to Florida and preview Saturday's game against Auburn. Here's everything Barnes had to say.

On bouncing back from the Florida game:

“Well, I hope so. We look at what we do after every game. I don’t think anybody is happy with the way we played at Florida. This league is good. It is hard to win. It is hard to win in any league. The fact is we didn’t play our best basketball. We got beat and we are going to have to play the next game, (which) always looms big. Whether you win or lose, the next one is a big one. You guys know that. We are going to have to play better. We are going to have to take care of some of the mental breakdowns we had in the game to be able to win any more games the rest of the year. You look at the rest of our schedule, it is only going to get tougher and tougher starting with Auburn on Saturday afternoon. Bruce (Pearl) has done what he has always does, a terrific job with this team. He is going to get the most out of them every year. As hard as the play. Knows what they are going to look for and the different matchups he is going to try and seek out. We are going to have to be on edge and know that we have to play better.”

On the mental breakdowns:

“There was more defensively. We have won games — we had some really good shots that didn’t go in, but that is part of the game. We can’t let that affect what we do on the defensive end. When we got the lead in the game, we didn’t do what we needed to do on the defensive end. That is what let the game get away from us. There were some defensive breakdowns that we can’t have.”

On if he is surprised by a bad game after a good game:

“I don’t think I am surprised. I don’t. I think it is really hard to be a great basketball team because young people today have a lot of distractions that can come their way. If you are not on top of it as much as we try to be, but still there is a lot of things going on out there. For some guys, being where we are, they have worked hard to get us here. But it is hard to not only get here, but is hard to stay here and it is really hard to stay here night in and night out. To do that, you have to have a state of mind to where you can stay focused one day at a time and never ever ever take somebody for granted and think it is going to be easy. I don’t care who you play. It is not easy. We have got to do a better job. I can tell you am I surprised? I am not. I have had teams that have gone through and had some that have handled it a little bit better. I don’t think I’ve ever had one that handled all perfectly.”

On the team meetings on Thursday:

“We talked about what we do, mainly defensively. That is what, again, we can talk about our shots. We had opportunities there to shoot the ball. But we can’t let the fact that we missed open shots at time affect us on the defensive end. That is really the crux of what it got down to. We fought back into the game after we got off to a poor start with some defensive breakdowns. We fought back in. Once we got the lead, give them credit. They fought back. For whatever reason, we weren’t as sharp as we needed to be on the defensive end.”

On how he felt like they defended Colin Castleton and how that prepares them for Auburn’s Johni Broome:

“I don’t think we defended him as well as we needed to. He’s a really good basketball player and we knew going in that not only is he a guy that they look to score but they look for him to facilitate a lot and he’s a terrific player. We weren’t disciplined enough. Every time we reached he made us pay and we should be, by now, too experienced to reach on a guy like that because good players, good teams, if you try to go for gambles and steals and you don’t come up with them they’re going to make you pay and I thought he did that.”

On the importance of knowing what you’re getting from Julian Phillips and Tyreke Key night in and night out:

“I think it’s important with every guy. You know, some nights you miss shots. You can live with that but I think the key with not just those two guys but everybody, the fact that they will take shots when they’re there and on the other end we’ve got to know night-in and night-out from every guy that we’re going to get their best effort and obviously they’re focused on the defensive end and just on offense we execute, like the other night we got as high of quality of shots. We didn’t make the shots, but we’ve won games that we didn’t make shots. We won a game against the University of Maryland where we shot 29% and had games where we haven’t shot well but we’ve won them because we’ve defended for the most part. We didn’t do that the other night.”

On what needs to happen for Julian Phillips to be more consistent offensively:

“I think it’s a mindset on his part too. Understanding but it’s not that we want to put the whole load on him. We talked to him about being aggressive and understanding how we need him to play and the other night it showed up, I think he only had four shots but he got to the free throw line and we need him to continue to do that but I would, whether it’s him or Olivier, anybody on our team. You look at everybody’s gameplan, it has been all year, will continue to be until we make them do otherwise, is they’re going to work hard at taking away our perimeter game and have us put the ball inside with our post guys and our post guys are going to have to give us something and it may not necessarily be a shot. It might just be playing inside out but people are certainly concerned about the perimeter guys so we need, whether it’s Julian or Tyreke or whoever, Josiah, we need those guys — Uros, Jonas, Tobe — we need those guys to help us.”

On if making twos is more important than making threes:

“I think it’s all important. You want good quality shots. You don’t get many great shots in college basketball when you play against high quality teams. They’re going to guard, they’re going to take things away and like we try to work hard at running people off the three-point line. Other teams will do the same thing to us so if you can get some rim shots. Some midrange shots— we believe in the midrange game. Some people don’t. We do but we had some of those shots the other night that we didn’t make but those are shots we practice and believe in, but they’re all important.”

On how difficult it is for freshmen to balance being aggressive, but not feeling like they need to start carrying the load:

“I think it’s a balance, but we’re not asking (Julian Phillips) to carry the load. We’re not. We’re asking — we’ve got a group of guys that we think that certainly we can spread it around. But it goes back to consistency. That’s what it goes back to. It’s not so much about Julian or one carrying the load. We just need consistency and balance from guys each and every game that we know what we’re going to get.”

On the balance of trying to get people to matchup with him with their lineups as opposed to matching what they’re doing:

“That’s what I think is great about this team. Is that we can do that. We did it the other night. We saw that we had started out the way we’ve been playing when we went to the bigger lineup and it goes back to defensively, we’re not going to get away from who we are on the defensive end. That’s what we’ve built this team on and it goes back to can we guard the way we need to guard. We did a decent job, but when we got the lead, we didn’t do a very good job. That was the difference in the game. We work hard with our post guys trying to guard a lot of different people, but the other night, we were just too undisciplined in the post and (Colin) Castleton took advantage of it.”

On Auburn:

“What Bruce does with his team every year is that he’s going to take the pieces that he’s got and put the puzzles together and I think he’s done it again this year. They’re certainly a different team, but every year he’s going to take what he’s got and get guys playing at a high level. They’re going to play hard, they’re going to execute what they want him to do. They are a team that get going, they’re explosive, they get down and they’re going to keep grinding away with it. But he does a great job year in and year out with whatever pieces he has. He’s going to put them together.”

On only having seven assists the other night:

“You miss open shots, you don’t get assists. Gotta make shots. Those midrange shots were all passes that we didn’t make.”

On the toughness of the SEC:

“Every game you play and it’s not just us. It’s everybody. Everybody has an opportunity every night to do something to get themselves in position. February is a month where everybody is fighting to secure something in the postseason. It’s not just us. Everybody has something to play for. You’ve got to be ready to play every single night. I don’t think there’s a team in the country that if they’re not ready to play, they can’t get beat this year. That’s the one thing we’ve seen in college basketball up until right now. You’ve got to be on top of it and if you’re not, you’re going to lose.”

1COMMENTS

On if he prefers college basketball going to a 24-second shot clock:

“No, I think the 30-second clock is a great clock for college basketball. I think the 24 is a little bit too difficult for college players to play with. People don’t realize how hard it is to play with a 24-second clock. The fact that we’ve got 30, it’s right for our game.”

">247Sports

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Four-star point guard Labaron Philon has committed to Auburn

Andrew Stefaniak

2–3 minutes

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Auburn has landed its second commit this week in four-star point guard Labaron Philon. 

Philon is a big guard standing six-foot-four, 177 pounds, and is an in-state recruit from Mobile. 

He is Auburn's third commit of the 2024 class, joining Peyton Marshall and Tahaad Pettiford. Auburn beat out some big-name schools like Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas to land Philon. 

While Philon might not be a five-star now, you can expect time to bring that coveted fifth star. 

Philon plays the game with a lot of swagger, which is something Auburn fans love to see. 

He can do all three main things point guards are asked to do; distribute the basketball, get to the rim, and shoot. His six-foot-four frame also helps him to be a lockdown defender. Philon is going to smother smaller guards at the next level.

Philon is not your prototypical Bruce Pearl guard since he is so tall. As Auburn fans, we are used to seeing Jared Harper, Sharife Cooper, and Wendell Green Jr. All of these guards have one thing in common, they aren't very tall. 

Philon is a great player who has a ton of upside. Needless to say, he is going to be a blast to watch in Neville Arena. 

Coach Pearl isn't done recruiting this 2024 class which means when it is all said and done, this class could be scary. 

[Quietmaninthecorner 1,945]

1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

 He comes back, and maybe I make the mistake of trying to play him at some point guard, but that was where there may have only been 10 minutes a game, and he wasn’t ready. He’s more ready now, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to put him in right now. It’s just hard to miss all that time, miss all those reps, and then I’m going to put him in right now in the middle of the SEC?

“So, Chance has done nothing wrong. He’s done a lot of things right. I have not lost one ounce of confidence, and I’m confident that in a year from now, he’ll be one of our better players. But unless something dramatic changes with our roster, I just think I need to protect him from being out there where the guys have had so many more repetitions, it’s just not fair.”

Just repeating this quote on it's own since it gets asked about so often.