Before Auburn traveled to Tennessee this weekend for a top-25 showdown at Thompson-Boling Arena, there was a moment during the second half of Wednesday’s blowout of Georgia that brought some familiar flare back to the Tigers.

K.D. Johnson hit a step-back fadeaway from the baseline, just in front of Auburn’s bench just before the under-12 media timeout. As the shot dropped through the net, Johnson leaned back and turned toward his teammates with a swaggering snarl.

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It was one of those expressions and moments that became mainstays of Johnson’s first season on the Plains last year but have seemingly been rarer this season as Johnson has endured his share of struggles on the offensive end. Now, with Auburn embarked on the back half of its grueling SEC slate, the scowls are returning — as is Johnson’s offensive burst.

Johnson registered his third straight game in double figures on Saturday, finishing with 10 points off the bench in No. 25 Auburn’s 46-43 slugfest against No. 2 Tennessee. He was one of two Tigers to score in double figures, along with Johni Broome, who had a team-high 11 points. It also marked just the second time this season Johnson has posted three straight games of at least 10 points and the first time he did so in SEC play.

“He’s getting his mojo back a little bit,” forward Jaylin Williams said earlier this week. “That’s the K.D. we need to win.”

Johnson’s recent run of improved play started with last week’s loss at West Virginia in the Big 12/SEC Challenge. He finished with 10 points, three rebounds and three steals off the bench, as he posted his first double-digit scoring game since Dec. 10 against Memphis in Atlanta. That ended a stretch of 10 straight games — one-third of the regular season — in which Johnson struggled to crack double figures, averaging five points per game on 27.1 percent shooting during that stretch.

He followed it up with 13 points (on 4-of-7 shooting) and two steals off the bench in Auburn’s 21-point rout of Georgia, Johnson’s former team. He was one of four Tigers in double figures on the night, and 11 of his 13 points came in the second half.

“Well, his effort and energy are better, focus is better,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said after that game. “He’s making plays defensively; he had three steals at West Virginia and one tonight. He was better on the offensive end, and I think it definitely translates.”

Johnson’s latest solid performance was in Saturday’s loss at Tennessee, as he provided some offensive punch on an afternoon when scoring was at a premium, with both the Tigers and Vols turning in their worst offensive performances of the season, albeit largely due to the teams’ tenacious efforts on the defensive end.

Johnson’s 10 points came on just 2-of-6 shooting, but he was aggressive in attacking the rim and finished 6-of-8 from the free-throw line. After Auburn fell behind by eight with 5:25 to play—a seemingly insurmountable deficit at that point, considering how little both offenses were able to muster—Johnson led the charge for the Tigers in their late-game rally.

He got a layup with five minutes left to cut it to six, and on the next trip down the court, he drew a foul on Zakai Zeigler and made both free throws to make it a four-point lead. That was followed by a defensive rebound off a missed Tennessee 3-point attempt on the next trip down the floor, as the Vols went cold down the stretch. Auburn got within one on a tip-in by Broome with 18 seconds left, but the Tigers’ upset bid fell short at the buzzer, when Wendell Green Jr. missed an attempted game-tying 3-pointer on a controversial final play that included a no-call from officials despite considerable contact by Tennessee’s Olivier Nkamhoua.

Despite the loss, Johnson’s effort helped provide Auburn a chance at its biggest win of the season, and his recent resurgence has been a welcome sign for the Tigers at this point of the season.

The mercurial two-guard was Auburn’s second-leading scorer behind Jabari Smith last season, averaging 12.3 points per game in a starting role. He has struggled to find his rhythm this year while adapting to a sixth-man role as a junior, shooting just 35.2 percent from the field — and 25.7 percent from beyond the arc — while averaging 8.2 points per game.

“I’ve been playing a little sluggish for the team, and for us to be great as a whole, I have to be along with the team,” Johnson said after the Georgia game.

Johnson had just one stretch of consecutive games in single-digit scoring last season (a three-game stretch against Murray State, LSU and South Carolina), and he scored at least 10 points in 24 games, including a nine-game stretch in SEC play and five of the Tigers’ final six games of the 2021-22 season. This year, he had a promising run during nonconference play, when he averaged 13.3 points over a six-game stretch, but he has otherwise had trouble scoring at the rate he did last season.

That is, until the last three games. Pearl said he saw a chance in Johnson during practice the week of the West Virginia game. Something clicked. Senior wing Allen Flanigan noted Johnson was hustling more, beating defenders off the dribble like he so often did last season. He was more focused defensively, and his shots were starting to fall.

“(He’s) just doing the things he is capable of doing,” Flanigan said. “He has been practicing hard, practicing the right way. The practices lead over to the game. The good he has been doing in practice shows in the game.”

And just like that, some of that swagger has started to return for Johnson — and at a crucial point of the season for Auburn, which can use any added oomph it can find on offense as the postseason approaches.

“K.D.’s a great athlete,” Pearl said Saturday. “When you play the best teams on your schedule, you need his athleticism and his experience. His effort and his attitude have been really consistent. He’s really, really trying—and that’s great at this time of the year, because he’s definitely turning it on.”

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