Rick Barnes had one comparison for what Dalton Knecht did in Tennessee's win over Auburn

Rick Barnes reached back nearly 20 years Wednesday night. That’s how far he had to go to find something that compared to what Dalton Knecht had just done.

Knecht scored 27 of his 39 points in the second half — he erupted for 25 points in a span of 10 minutes, seven seconds — to lead No. 4 Tennessee to a 92-84 win over No. 11 Auburn at Thompson-Boling Arena, rallying his team from down eight points with 12 minutes left.

There was only one name Barnes could come up with after the game.

“I’ll be honest with you, JJ Redick did it,” Barnes said. “He torched us for (41) one night.”

That night was December 11, 2005. No. 1 Duke beat No. 2 Texas 97-66 in East Rutherford, N.J., after Reddick scored his 41 points on 13-for-24 shooting from the field, including nine 3-pointers.  

Knecht, in his fourth game with 35 or more points this season and his sixth with 30-plus, went 12-for-21 from the field, 5-for-8 from the 3-point line and 10-for-12 at the foul line. 

“And I’m telling you,” Barnes said during his postgame press conference, “when you sit there, you feel helpless because of the shots he makes. And (you’re) just trying to guard him the best you can. But when he gets it going, it’s hard to guard.”

Auburn scored 21 points over the final 12:17 Wednesday night, after taking a 63-55 lead on two KD Johnson free throws. Knecht scored 25 over the same span.

The Tigers had just spent the previous six minutes flipping the game, turning a nine-point deficit into the eight-point lead thanks to a 23-6 run to take control midway through the second half. 

“We got some stops,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said after the game. “Dalton, at that point, hadn’t just caught fire.”

The fire started with 12:01 left, when Knecht hit a long three after Auburn switched to a zone defense. Next was a drive and dunk, then three free throws over the next minute.

Then there was another three. Then there was a pair of contested jump shots. Another three, another dunk, another free throw and then two layups. 

“We set the double (team) a couple times,” Pearl said. “We got a turnover. We set a double and one time he passed out of it and they got a dunk. 

“I think that we felt like we had guys that could guard him. And when Tennessee wins, they typically win when everybody contributes, right? And tonight (Knecht) sort of dispelled that.”

‘He made a lot of tough shots, a lot of shots that were contested’

At one point Auburn’s Chad Baker-Mazara simply wrapped his arms around Knecht’s waste in a hug, doing anything he could to slow him down.

When Johni Broome, Auburn’s star center, switched to guard Knecht, Tennessee’s star wing shot over him. When Broome stepped out farther past the 3-point line on his next attempt, Knecht went left, driving past Broome for a two-hand dunk after a wide-open run to the rim.

“He made a lot of tough shots, a lot of shots that were contested,” Pearl said, “… when he went downhill, I thought there were times when we could have offered more resistance, more help off the ball. We didn’t.”

Auburn sent three defenders to Knecht in the closing minutes, after he had already matched his season high with 39 points.

“They ran three guys at him,” Barnes said, “and I might have done same thing because I mean, you could tell when a guy gets heated up like that …  Bruce has been around a long time, we’ve all seen guys that can get that going maybe at a level like that.”

It’s just not very often that any coach sees any player go off like that. For Barnes, it had been nearly 20 years.

“What he did in the last about 12 minutes,” Barnes said, “I think was just one of the great performances that I’ve been able to see.”