SEC basketball final: Auburn 94, Kentucky 78
It’s not every day that the No. 1 team in the country comes to Rupp Arena, but the top-ranked Auburn Tigers are in town to face No. 17 Kentucky in an SEC basketball clash on Saturday.
Tipoff is set for 1 p.m. on ABC with Dan Shulman, Jay “I Love Rupp Arena Ice Cream” Bilas and Jess Sims.
Ben Roberts, Cameron Drummond, Mark Story, Ryan Hermens and yours truly will be in Section 235 documenting the action. You can follow Ben’s updates on Bluesky at @benrobertshl. You can follow the rest of us on X/Twitter at @markcstory, @ryanhermens, @cdrummond97 and @johnclayiv.
You can follow a dedicated Kentucky basketball X/Twitter list by clicking here.
Scouting report: Auburn
This is the best team Bruce Pearl has put on the floor in his 11 years at Auburn. The Tigers are 26-2 overall and 14-1 in the SEC. Florida is the lone conference team to topple the Tigers, 90-81 at Auburn on Feb. 8. Duke handed Auburn its first loss, 84-78, way back on Dec. 4 at Cameron Indoor.
Ken Pomeroy’s advanced calculations rank Auburn as No. 2 in adjusted overall efficiency, behind Duke. The Tigers boast KenPom’s No. 1 ranking in adjusted overall efficiency. Auburn is No. 12 in adjusted defensive efficiency.
Teams in the top 20 of both KenPom rankings: Duke, Auburn, Houston, Florida, Arizona and Maryland.
Former Morehead State star Johni Broome is not just Auburn’s top player but perhaps the nation’s top player. Broome leads Auburn in scoring (18.8 points per game), rebounding (11.0 per game) and assists (3.4 per game). Broome has produced 17 double-doubles on the season.
Scouting report: Kentucky
Thanks to that heart-stopping 83-82 win at Oklahoma on Wednesday, Kentucky is 19-9 overall and 8-7 in the SEC. The Pomeroy product has UK ranked No. 15 in adjusted overall efficiency. The Cats are No. 6 in adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 61 in adjusted defensive efficiency.
Otega Oweh not only leads Mark Pope’s team in scoring at 16.1 per game, the Oklahoma transfer scored 28 points — including his team’s final 18 points — in the win at Oklahoma on Wednesday. Otega’s best game of the year followed his worst game of the year, when the 6-foot-4 junior guard was held to a season-low two points by Alabama. It was Otega’s first single-digit scoring game of the entire season.
This story was originally published March 1, 2025 at 12:00 PM.
