KNOXVILLE — Auburn basketball center Johni Broome did his best.

Switched out onto who will likely be the SEC Player of the Year in Dalton Knecht, Broome shuffled his feet and moved his body to stay in front of the Northern Colorado transfer who's taken the country by storm as Tennessee's most dangerous offensive weapon.

Broome's effort didn't seem to phase the sweet-shooting wing. That would've likely been the case no matter who was guarding him. Knecht connected on a 3-pointer over Broome's outstretched arm to give the Vols a five-point lead with 6:39 remaining Wednesday evening in Thompson-Boiling Arena.

It was the final triple Knecht made in a brilliant outing that featured him scoring 39 points. He followed the long-range make up with a dunk, a layup and a free throw within the next two minutes to put not only the Tigers to bed, but also their hopes of winning the SEC regular-season title.

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"We sent the double (at Knecht) a couple times," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. "We got a turnover (once). We sent a double (another time and) he passed out of it and they got a dunk. I felt like we had guys who could guard him. When Tennessee wins, they typically win when everybody contributes. Tonight, he sort of dispelled that."

Pearl added: "I don't know what the score was, but I think his getting hot was about the time we may have had our biggest lead. At the end of the day, all you can do is tip your hat. Just tip your hat."

Auburn is two games back in the SEC race with just three contests remaining, and first-place Tennessee now holds the tiebreaker over the Tigers. It's not mathematically over, but the odds of the Vols dropping all of their remaining games doesn't seem particularly likely.

With a regular-season title all but out of the question, the attention now shifts to locking up the best seed possible in the upcoming SEC Tournament. The top-four teams in the conference get a double bye to the third round. Since 2012, only two teams have made it to the conference championship and weren't in the top four: 2019 Auburn and 2022 Texas A&M, according to the Auburn Observer.

There are seven teams with a realistic shot of either staying in or getting into the top four: Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Auburn, Kentucky, Florida and Mississippi State. There's currently a three-way tie for fourth place between the Tigers, Wildcats and Gators.

All Auburn can do now is win the remaining games on its schedule and hope. That starts with a home test versus the Bulldogs on Saturday (3 p.m. CT, ESPN2/ESPNU). The Tigers will then wrap up with a road trip to Missouri on March 5 and a finale against Georgia in Neville Arena on March 9.

"The hardest thing, I think, we're going to have to do all year, is recover from this," Pearl said of the Tennessee loss. "It's going to be the hardest recovery. We came here to try to win a championship. A championship is probably out of − you know, Tennessee's got a two-game lead. ... The kids don't get a reprieve. They don't get any kind of break. ...

"This is going to be a hard one to recover from because we had our chances and just didn't take advantage of the opportunity. We did not seize the opportunity, and that's disappointing."

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn basketball is likely out of the SEC race. What now?