No. 12 Auburn goes wire-to-wire to beat Florida 86-67 for SEC Tournament title
Johni Broome scored 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as No. 12 Auburn won the Tigers’ third Southeastern Conference Tournament championship by beating Florida 86-67
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Johni Broome scored 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as No. 12 Auburn won the Tigers' third Southeastern Conference Tournament championship by beating Florida 86-67 on Sunday in a game marred by a gruesome injury to Gators center Micah Handlogten.
The Tigers (27-7) avoided the upset bug that took out the SEC's top three seeds in Friday's quarterfinals, leaving them as the highest seed still standing. They never trailed in the final, adding titles to those won in 1985 and 2019 and earning a second under coach Bruce Pearl.
Denver Jones scored 11 points for Auburn. Chad Baker-Mazara added 10 before going to the bench along with Broome and getting a standing ovation with two minutes left.
The sixth-seeded Florida Gators (24-11) were playing their fourth game in as many days and trying to win the program's fifth SEC Tournament title and first since 2014. But they lost Handlogten, who was taken off the court on a stretcher, to a broken lower left leg within the first three minutes.
