The basketball season is not over for Auburn basketball, but falling short in the conference tournament was a blow the Tigers were not expecting.

With goals of repeating as conference tournament champions, the Tigers were outplayed by the brilliance of Tennessee’s backcourt.

Zakai Zeigler and Jordan Gainey combined for 35 points. The Volunteers also caused 21 team fouls on the Tigers hurting their depth throughout the course of the game.

“Tennessee’s guards are elite. They’re great, great guards. They do a great job of closing out a little quicker,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said postgame.

“Tonight, obviously we just didn’t shoot a good percentage. I thought we’d shoot better, play better offensively. I know we could not play much better defensively as we did at home, holding them to 51. Hold them to 70, you have a chance. We just fouled too much.”

Denver Jones finished with 10 points on one made shot from the floor. Miles Kelly added 13 points but finished with four fouls. Tahaad Pettiford was scoreless shooting 0-of-8 from the floor.

“Yeah, we just have to stay focused. We got a little over ourselves. Just try to stay composed and do what we were doing all year — toughness,” Pettiford said postgame.

Jones added his thoughts on the Volunteers defense and said they were expecting Tennessee to bring this level of intensity.

“I’d probably say just their pressure and just how they were going,” Jones said. “And we kind already knew that going into the season, one of the best defense teams in the country and they disrupted us a little bit.”

Auburn leading scorer Johni Broome led all scorers with 23 points. However, he shot 5-of-12 from the free throw line as the Tigers finished shooting 59% from the line.

Dylan Cardwell defended Broome putting the blame on the Tigers rebounding. Tennessee outrebounded Auburn 35-27, as the Tigers finished with nine offensive rebounds.

“At the end of the day we can’t control free throws. We only control effort and energy and I will never put a loss on Johni,” Cardwell said postgame. “We are not here without him. He still dropped 23 points. At the end of the day, we just fouled too much and gave up too many offensive rebounds.”

Auburn also shot 29% from beyond the arc, only connecting on six 3-pointers all game. Pearl pointed out that Broome’s one assist was due to the number of shots the Tigers missed from deep.

“Yeah, in a close game, obviously it’s important and we’ve done a great job winning a lot of close games this year, we’ve been really good at the foul line. Johni did a great job inside, just dominating inside, earned those foul shots that he got. Obviously, he struggled at the free-throw line,” Pearl added.

“Tennessee was playing drop coverage. We had our point guards, Denver and Tahaad, were combined 1-10 from the three. Most of them were decent looks. We’re usually going to make those. Johni had one assist, that’s because we didn’t bang shots we’ve normally made.”

With the night to reflect on its NCAA tournament goals, Auburn will see where they’ll be seeded and their region on Selection Sunday.

Jerry Humphrey III covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Jerryhump3 or email him at [email protected].