Auburn Tigers vs. Tennessee Vols Preview, How to Watch SEC Tournament

#1 Auburn Tigers (28-4) vs. #4 Tennessee (26-6)
SEC Tournament Semifinals
March 15, 2025 at Noon (CT)
Bridgestone Arena (18,500) | Nashville, Tenn.

Television: ESPN
Play-By-Play: Dan Shulman
Color Analyst: Jay Bilas
Sideline Reporter: Jess Sims

Radio: Auburn Sports Network
Play-By-Play: Andy Burcham
Color Analyst: Randall Dickey

Top-seeded Auburn (28-4) takes on fourth-seeded Tennessee (26-6) in the SEC Tournament semifinals on Saturday afternoon at Bridgestone Arena. It marks the first meeting between the two teams in the tournament since the Tigers claimed an 84-64 victory in the 2019 SEC Championship Game.

Auburn defeated the Ole Miss Rebels 62-57 behind a 23-point and 15-rebound effort from SEC Player of the Year Johni Broome.

Tennessee reaches the semi-finals after dispatching the No. 13 seed Texas Longhorns 83-72 on Friday afternoon. The Vols were paced by 23 points from Chaz Lanier and relied heavily on their starting five. The Vols got just 12 points from their three-man bench on Saturday.

The Tigers beat the Vols in their lowest-scoring game of the season in January. Broome came off the bench to score 16 points after an ankle injury, and the Tigers won 53-51.

» The Tigers compiled a 15-3 record in regular-season play to earn the No. 1 seed.

» Auburn is looking to repeat as SEC Tournament champions after winning its third SEC Tournament title in program history and second under head coach Bruce Pearl a year ago in Nashville. The Tigers also won the tournament title in 1985 and 2019.

» Since 2018, Auburn has won three SEC regular-season championships and two tournament titles, which leads the league for overall championships over that span.

» Bruce Pearl and C.M. Newton, who won two Associated Press SEC Coach of the Year honors at Alabama and Vanderbilt, are the only head coaches to win the award at two different league schools. Pearl, who won the award in 2006 and 2008 at Tennessee and twice at Auburn in 2022 and 2025, is tied with Newton for the second-most AP SEC Coach of the Year awards all-time, one behind Adolph Rupp’s five at Kentucky.

» Johni Broome was honored as SEC Player of the Year by the Associated Press and the league’s coaches this week. Broome joins Charles Barkley (1984) and Chris Porter (1999) as the only Tigers to win the AP honor.

» Auburn matched program records with the 2021-22 squad with 15 SEC wins & 27 regular-season wins.

» Auburn, which had been ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll for eight-straight weeks, is one of only two SEC teams to ever be ranked first for at least six-straight weeks in the AP Poll, joining Kentucky. The Tigers are No. 3 in both national polls behind Duke and Houston.

» The Tigers have been ranked for 32-consecutive weeks, which is the seventh-longest active streak in the country and matches the longest streak in program history. Four of Auburn’s five longest ranked streaks in program history have come since January 2018. Saturday's contest is the 56th-straight game the Tigers have played as a ranked team.

SERIES HISTORY vs. TENNESSEE

» Auburn is 8-3 in the last 11 contests against Tennessee including the top-ranked Tigers' 53-51 victory over the sixth-ranked Volunteers on Jan. 25 at Neville Arena – the only meeting between the two teams during the regular season.

» Ten of the last 12 games in the series, including the last six, have been decided by 10 points or less. The last six contests in the series have been decided by an average of 5.3 points.

» Tennessee leads 7-5 the series at neutral sites and 8-4 in the SEC Tournament, but Auburn defeated the Volunteers, 84-64, in the 2019 championship game the last time the two teams met in postseason play.

» Bruce Pearl is 9-7 as a head coach against Tennessee with all 16 games coming during his 11 seasons at Auburn. He is 1-1 versus the Volunteers in the SEC Tournament including an 84-64 victory in the 2019 title game.

» Pearl is 11-7 in head-to-head meetings with Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes including a 9-6 mark at Auburn versus Barnes at UT. Pearl went 2-1 against Texas under Barnes during his six seasons at Tennessee.

» In those coaching matchups, the Volunteers defeated No. 6 Texas, 95-78, in Austin on Dec. 17, 2005, behind 21 points from Chris Lofton and 111-105 in overtime on Dec. 23, 2006 behind 35 points and 11 rebounds from Lofton. Meanwhile, the No. 15-ranked Longhorns knocked off No. 7 Tennessee, 97-78, on Nov. 24, 2007 in Newark, N.J.

PLAYER TO WATCH: JOHNI BROOME

» Senior big man Johni Broome joined Charles Barkley (1984) and Chris Porter (1999) as the only Tigers to earn SEC Player of the Year honors from the Associated Press.

» He is the only player in NCAA Division I men’s basketball history to record 2,500 points, 1,500 rebounds and 400 blocks in his career.

» Broome is averaging 18.7 points and 10.7 rebounds per game on the season. Against Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament Quarterfinals, he scored 23 points and pulled down 15 rebounds for his 18th double-doubles this season, tying Mike Mitchell’s single-season school record for double-doubles during the 1974-75 season.

» Broome is making his third SEC Tournament appearance and was crowned the Most Valuable Player of last year’s tournament.

» This season, he led the Tigers to a No. 1 national ranking for a school-record eight consecutive weeks, 16 Quad 1 wins in the regular season, the 2024 Maui Invitational crown and the program’s fifth Southeastern Conference title (regular season or tournament) over the last eight seasons.

» The SEC Player of the Year (coaches and AP) and two-time All-SEC First Team selection was also recently recognized as the National College Player of the Year by the Sporting News, co-Player of the Year by the Field of 68 Network as well as Player of the Year by the NCAA’s Andy Katz and by Jon Rothstein for College Hoops Today.