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.
Zyon Pullin led the Gators with 15 points. Walter Clayton Jr. added 13, Tyrese Samuel had 12 and Thomas Haugh 11.
NO. 13 ILLINOIS 92, WISCONSIN 87
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Terrence Shannon Jr. scored 34 points on 15-for-17 shooting from the free-throw line, helping 13th-ranked Illinois past Wisconsin in the Big Ten tournament championship.
Marcus Domask added 26 points, eight assists and seven rebounds and Dain Dainja had nine points and seven rebounds for the Illini (26-8), who won their fourth conference title and their second in four years after shooting 16 of 26 from the floor in the second half.
Shannon finished with 102 points in three games this weekend, one short of the Big Ten Tournament scoring record, and was voted the Most Outstanding Player. Keegan Murray had 103 points for Iowa in 2022, but the Hawkeyes played four games that year on the way to the title.
A.J. Storr had 24 points and Chucky Hepburn added 20 points for the Badgers (22-13), who went 7 for 20 from 3-point range after going 33 for 79 over their first three games of the tournament.
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