AU HOOPS: Knox lifts Tigers with last-second tip-in

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The final play Monday was set up for Brendon Knox, a basic screen and roll toward the hoop against a Virginia team without its most reliable big men.

Just like Knox, though, it required a second chance to come through and give Auburn a dramatic victory at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum.

Knox’s putback off a DeWayne Reed miss with 1.4 seconds to play was the difference in the Tigers’ 68-67 victory over the Cavaliers before an announced crowd of 5,493.

“It was an opportunity,” Knox said shyly. “I had to make the most of it.”

Knox was a perfect 5-for-5 from the field but an ugly 1-of-7 from the foul line. His 16th miss of the season from the stripe — out of 29 attempts — was the most detrimental, coming with 31 seconds to play and Auburn in a position to take a two-possession lead.

“I felt like I let my team down on free throws,” Knox said. “If I had hit one or two more, we wouldn’t have been in that situation.”

The situation got significantly worse when Lucas Hargrove fouled Virginia’s Sammy Zeglinski on a 3-point attempt with 7 seconds to play and the Cavaliers trailing, 66-64. Coach Jeff Lebo’s reaction sent him all the way out into the court, his hands flung in the air and head cocked backward.

The Beard-Eaves crowd followed suit, as one fan from the opposite end from the student section launched ice cubes onto the floor, prompting a warning from the officials.

“I’ll have to look at the tape,” Lebo said. “These are good officials. These guys are good.”

Lebo responded by trying to ice Zeglinski, a career 55.3 percent free-throw shooter, twice, once with a timeout before the first attempt and the other
before his third shot.

It didn’t work. He sunk all three, even after Frankie Sullivan tried to talk him out of it.

“I was asking if he could just miss one of them,” Sullivan said.

With the Tigers unable to call a timeout because of the two it had during Zeglinski’s free throws, Reed sped the ball up the court with two players on his hip.

The play that was designed to get the ball in Knox’s hands never developed because Reed didn’t give it up. His layup clanged off the left side of the rim, but Knox was in the perfect place, no Virginia players in sight, for the easy tip-in.

“It feels so good,” Lebo said, “that we’ll give him the day off tomorrow.”

That day off might be spent with a painstaking analysis of the game film, which will likely show a number of wasted opportunities to put the Cavaliers away when they were on the ropes.

Tay Waller’s 3-pointer with 4:24 to play gave Auburn a 66-58 lead. Knox’s putback was the next and final time the Tigers would score.

Instead of pounding it inside to Knox or Johnnie Lett, who had an easier than expected day because Virginia’s Mike Scott was out with an ankle injury,
the Tigers settled for contested jump shots early in the shot clock. That allowed Virginia, which struggled to get much going in the second half when
Sylvan Landesberg went cold, to crawl back within striking distance and ultimately reclaim the lead.

“We’ll see on film that Knox is a beast and we have to get the ball to him,” Sullivan said.

Reed led the Tigers with 18 points, Lucas Hargrove had 13, Knox had 11 and Waller added 10. Sullivan was the fifth Tiger in double figures at 12, but his defense in the second half against Landesberg, who had 17 points in the first half but was 0-of-7 from the field in the second half, was “the difference,” Lebo said.

“Frankie was just everywhere with him,” Lebo said.

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