LEXINGTON, Ky. — Miles Kelly scored a season-high 30 points to lead No. 1 Auburn to a 94-78 win over No. 17 Kentucky on Saturday.

The Tigers (27-2, 15-1 SEC) have six straight victories and won the SEC regular-season title outright when No. 5 Tennessee edged No. 6 Alabama 79-76 later Saturday. Auburn posted video on X of its players celebrating on the team bus after watching Tennessee’s 3-pointer at the buzzer to win it.

Auburn won in Lexington for the first time since a 53-52 triumph over then-No. 1 Kentucky in 1988.

Chad Baker-Mazara followed Kelly with 22 points and Tahaad Pettiford scored 21.

Koby Brea led Kentucky (19-10, 8-8) with 21 points. Andrew Carr had 20 points and Amari Williams had 13 points and 14 rebounds.

Head coach Mark Pope praised Auburn and its ability to switch on defense. He said, “Right now, they are the best team in the country.  You know, they punished us tonight, for sure.  It’s a real credit to their guys, to their players, and a real credit to coach Pearl and their staff because they do a lot of switching on the fly.  There is a lot of communication on the fly.”

Takeaways

Auburn: Leading scorer Johni Broome (18.8 ppg) finished with just nine points and had just one in the first half. Auburn got its eighth win against a top-15 foe this season, including six against teams ranked in the top five. The Tigers remained undefeated (10-0) on the road against league opponents this season.

Kentucky: The Wildcats were without third-leading scorer Jaxson Robinson (wrist). Coming off a career-high 28 points in an 83-82 win at Oklahoma on Wednesday, leading scorer Otega Oweh (16.1 ppg) scored four points, just the second time he’s failed to reach double figures in 29 games this season. Kentucky made just four 3-pointers, compared to 12 for Auburn.

After the game, Pope announced Robinson would have surgery on is wrist and will miss the remainder of the season. Robison is expected to make a full recovery in approximately three months. 

Key moment

Auburn gained control with a 14-2 run that turned a 7-6 advantage into a 21-8 lead with 12 minutes left in the first half. Auburn closed out the first half with an 11-2 spurt for a 49-34 halftime lead.

Key stat

The Wildcats committed 18 turnovers, with the Tigers scoring 21 points off those miscues. Kentucky had four straight turnovers in the first three minutes of the second half.

After the game, Pope took the blame. He said, “I wasn’t able to get the guys to a place where could just kinda be present in execution of the moment. That’s what happens when you get under duress and you, you know, you are carrying around baggage.  You have really inexplicable series of plays like that.  It was a pretty devastating run for us, for sure.”

Up next

UK has Senior Night on Tuesday, March 4, as the Wildcats play host to LSU.  Game time is 7 p.m. and it will be televised on ESPN2.