Nate Ament returned to action, and the Tennessee Volunteers returned to their familiar spot in the Southeastern Conference tournament.
Ament scored 27 points and collected eight rebounds, keying a stunning 20-0 run Thursday afternoon that helped turn a 51-41 deficit midway through the second half into a 61-51 lead in an eventual 72-62 downing of Auburn inside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. The 6-foot-10, 207-pound freshman forward, who missed Tennessee’s final two regular-season games with a high-ankle sprain, tallied 17 of his points against the Tigers in the second half and 11 in the decisive surge.
“It was great having Nate back,” Tennessee senior point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie said afterward in a press conference. “He’s been a great player for us all year, and he’s a great closer at the end of the game. He just took over and won us the game, really.”
The 25th-ranked, fifth-seeded Vols improved to 22-10 and advanced to face 22nd-ranked, fourth-seeded Vanderbilt (24-7) in Friday’s quarterfinals (3:30 p.m. Eastern on ESPN).
Tennessee, which had a first-round bye, is in the SEC quarterfinals for an eighth consecutive season and has won at least 22 games for a fifth straight year, which sets a program record. The 12th-seeded Tigers dropped to 17-16 and will have their postseason fate determined Sunday by the NCAA tournament selection committee.