Miles Kelly on his go-ahead shot heard around the world

Miles Kelly was scoreless at halftime as Auburn basketball led by just two points early to Tennessee Saturday night.

The six points he finished the game with will not only resonate with the hearts of Auburn fans forever but will go down as one of Kelly’s best moments in his basketball career.

“Me and [Johni Broome] was just talking about this on the walk here: he went up and missed a layup and I was backing up to the three-point line,” Kelly said postgame. “As soon as he seen me, he was like, ‘Oh, MK open!’ He threw it to me. As soon as it left my hands, I knew it was good. Those are the moment that I live for.”

Kelly’s go-ahead 3-point basket gave the Tigers a two-point lead with 30 seconds left on the clock. As a team, Auburn hit only three shots from beyond arc as Kelly drained two in the second half leading to the 53-51 victory.

Despite the early shooting slump, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl knew Kelly was the right player to trust with the ball in that moment of the game.

“Yeah. No doubt. I had no doubt it was going in. Absolutely no doubt,” Bruce Pearl said. “And neither did anybody in this building, neither did any of his teammates. He hit a big shot coming off a pin-down too about five or six minutes earlier. So, offense was tough.”

Pearl also acknowledged the close games the Tigers has survived in conference play and plans to grow especially from Saturday’s ugly victory.

“Well, I mean, we’ve won some close games now, and so I think we can learn, you know, something from them. I know we can play better,” Bruce Pearl said. “So, I give Tennessee all the credit for how poorly we played at times. But the good thing is our guys are all feeling good knowing that we can play better, and we still were able to beat a great team.”

Now improving to 6-0 in SEC play and 18-1 overall, Auburn will travel to LSU and Ole Miss before returning back to Neville arena to host Oklahoma.