Auburn's winning streak came to an end in Knoxville. What are the main things to take away from the game?
After they picked up three-consecutive wins, the Auburn Tigers were brought back to earth on Saturday night when they dropped a 77-69 contest against the Tennessee Volunteer's inside Thompson-Boling Arena.
Auburn (14-8, 5-4 SEC) never held a lead during the contest, and Tennessee (15-6, 5-3 SEC) held off each rally the Tigers made in an attempt to claim control of the game.
Here are three of the main takeaways from Auburn's loss in a snow-covered Knoxville:
Tennessee crushed Auburn on the glass
When the final buzzer sounded, the Volunteers had come up with 46 rebounds. The Tigers, on the other hand, ended the night with 30, a significant difference.
Tennessee out-performed Auburn 17-12 in offensive rebounds, and 29-18 in boards on the defensive end of the floor.
Despite Tennessee coming up with more offensive boards, Auburn turned in a 15-13 advantage in second-chance points at the end of the matchup.
Rebounding has been a consistent struggle for the Tigers throughout the season, and the Volunteers took advantage of that fact. As a result, they picked up a win over Auburn for the second time in a row.
Tennessee responded to each Auburn run
Basketball is a game of runs, and this is a fact Auburn tried to use to its advantage on Saturday night. Each time the Tigers strengthened the deficit, however, the Volunteers immediately weathered the storm.
Auburn cut Tennessee's lead down to four points in the first half, then was down 13 points three minutes later. Auburn did so again around the mid point of the second half, just for Tennessee to build up another double-digit lead.
With seven minutes left, Tennessee was leading by three points. Less than three minutes after that, Tennessee led by 11 and Auburn never recovered.
3-point shooting woes persist for Auburn
Similarly to rebounding, one area that the Tigers have not had a lot of luck in this season is 3-point shooting. Again, this fact reared its head during Saturday night's contest.
Auburn shot 7-of-31, 22.6%, from beyond the arc, a number that isn't going to yield favorable results the majority of the time.
Auburn has a week off from mid-week competition, but returns to action for the first edition of the 2026 Iron Bowl of Basketball when the No. 23 Alabama Crimson Tide makes their way to Neville Arena on Saturday, Feb. 7. Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. CT, and the television broadcast will be carried by either ESPN or ESPN2.