By Joshua Huff

jhuff@kykernel.com

The SEC Championship awaits UK after it defeated a depleted Auburn team that had won three-consecutive games during an improbable tournament run that ended after a 91-67 loss on Saturday.

Missing two of its players due to suspension, the Tigers faced an arduous task against the only remaining undefeated team in the nation. With a significant height advantage, UK used a huge game from Willie Cauley-Stein and Andrew Harrison to once again blow out Auburn. The Cats had five players that scored 10 points or more.

“Willie was the best version of himself,” UK coach John Calipari praised. “The good news with this team if he’s not, and Andrew’s not, we’re still ok. It was a good game, hard fought game.”

The game was chippy from the onset as Auburn, at one point in the first half, had almost more fouls (seven) than field goals (nine). The aggressiveness by both teams came full circle when Auburn’s Trayvon Reed was involved in a verbal altercation with a much smaller Tyler Ulis. Forty-nine personal fouls were called in the game.

With Auburn focused on minimizing the damage UK deals in the paint, the Cats turned to an inside-out game that was helped by the deft shooting of Aaron and Andrew Harrison and Devin Booker.

“They were double teaming,” in the post, Calipari said. “Now I was disappointed in, there were times as the ball moved, they moved quicker than our big guys to fight for position … our kids did exactly what they should have done, (though), they kicked it out for threes and spun the ball for a drive and lob. They did what they were supposed to.”

UK still scored 91 points after Auburn took away the post.

UK shot 56 percent from the field and 50 percent from three, while Auburn shot 33 percent from the field and 30 percent from the perimeter. The latter a result of Calipari deciding to insert Cauley-Stein into a defensive assignment against Auburn’s guard, KT Harrell.

“We made sure that Harrell wasn’t going to hurt us,” Calipari said. “I told our guys prior to the game let’s look at this like it’s an NCAA Tournament game and they have a guy that can go for 40, we’re going to make sure that we make that tough.”

Then Calipari decided to put Cauley-Stein on him.

“We made a decision to let Willie guard him,” he said. “Here’s a 7-foot, fleet-footed, long-armed guy guarding you and you say ‘what did I do, why is he guarding me?’ And the kid went one-for-12.”

Auburn was led by the 23 points from Antoine Mason. He was 3-for-4 from beyond the arc and helped chip away at UK’s huge lead midway through the second half. But the depth of UK was too much for the Cinderella Tigers.

“This is the deepest team I’ve had,” Calipari said. “I’ve had some really good defensive teams, like really really good. This team is good but it’s just deeper than any team I’ve had. Normally the best team’s I’ve had I’d play six guys … when you’re playing nine guys you can really shuffle.”