Donnie Tyndall tried his best to downplay Bruce Pearl’s return, but Josh Richardson understood the significance of Saturday’s contest.
“Being a new coach at a new school and playing against an old coach that did so much for the school — that the fans love so much — if he felt any pressure, I think he did a good job of not letting us see it,” the senior guard said.
“I just know it meant a lot to him.”
In the end, the Volunteers stepped up for their first-year head coach, outscoring Auburn 22-11 over the final 10:50 of the game en route to a 71-63 victory over the Tigers inside Thompson-Boling Arena.
“Obviously, tonight was a big game in terms of Bruce Pearl returning,” Tyndall said. “I never talked about it with my team, though. I would like to say how much I respect him. Their team was picked eighth or ninth in the preseason SEC poll, but he has them playing like an upper-tier team in regards to toughness and how they are playing.
“Tonight was certainly a 40-minute battle that could have went either way.”
Despite six previous lead changes and nine different scoring ties, the real battle began as soon as Auburn’s Antoine Mason drained a three to give the Tigers a 52-49 lead with 10:50 remaining.
Shortly after, though, Tennessee (13-7, 5-3 SEC) reversed the deficit into a lead of its own and began to pull away.
Junior forward Derek Reese made a layup to trim the Tiger’s lead back down to one, and after a Tahj Shamsid-Deen turnover, Richardson turned a foul into a pair of made free throws to put UT ahead.
From there, the Vols scored seven unanswered points to cap off an 11-0 run that turned an once Auburn lead into a 60-52 UT advantage.
“We just stayed with it,” said junior guard Kevin Punter, who finished with 17 points. “Those guys made a few shots, but you can’t back down when teams start doing that. We stayed the course, continued to run our offense, continued to do what we do, and most importantly, we played defense.”
Auburn (10-11, 2-6), however, quickly answered, reeling off a 6-2 run of their own to cut the lead down to three.
But that was as close as the Tigers got, as the Vols slammed the door with a Reese 3-pointer and six free throws to close the game out.
“Once we got a little bit of a lead, we started playing to win, instead of other games where we’ve kind of been playing not to lose at the end,” said Richardson, who finished with 15 points.
But while Tennessee and Auburn juggled the lead around numerous times, the one constant on Saturday was Armani Moore.
In 34 minutes of action, the junior guard scored a game-high 19 points — a career-best — and corralled a game-high 13 rebounds, while also providing a pair of highlight-reel efforts with a tip-in dunk late in the first half and a weak-side block in the second half.
“The thing about Armani is that he is consistent in his effort, not just on game night but in practice,” Tyndall said. “There is a reason he puts on the numbers that he does because he does it everyday in practice just like today.”
Ultimately, though, it was the ghost of the past wandering the sidelines that demanded at least a share of the spotlight.
But that didn’t detract Tyndall, and it didn’t sidetrack the four returning players who had to deal with last year’s petition.
Instead, they focused on winning.
And the future.
“To be honest, I don’t look into all of that,” Moore said. “I don’t pay attention to the whole Bruce Pearl thing or the petition of last year. I feel like this is a new year and a new season for us to do some great things, so as long as me and my teammates keep working hard, I feel like we will be OK.”
