ATHENS — K.T. Harrell scored 21 points to rally Auburn to a 69-68 victory at Georgia on Saturday.
After Auburn (12-13, 4-8 Southeastern Conference) fell behind by nine points with 5:17 to play, the Tigers got hot.
When Harrell's 3-pointer with 56 seconds to go put Auburn ahead for good, 65-63, it was the fifth straight make by the Tigers.
Georgia (16-8, 7-5 SEC) had a chance to win at the buzzer. Kenny Gaines hit a 3-pointer with 1.8 seconds to go, but Auburn needed only to get the ball in-bounds to win. However, the Tigers threw it out of bounds on the other end of the floor without anybody touching the ball.
The Bulldogs' Nemanja Djurisic had a chance to win with a shot from the corner, but came up short.
Gaines led the Bulldogs with 18 points, and Charles Mann added 14.
Auburn got 17 points from K.C. Ross-Miller.
Both teams struggled offensively in the first half. The Bulldogs missed five layups in the first four minutes as Auburn took an early 7-2 lead. Halfway through the first half, Georgia had made just two of 11 field-goal attempts.
Auburn's biggest lead came with 14:09 left in the half when Harrell hit a jumper from inside the paint to make it 12-4.
The Bulldogs finally tied the score at 22-all at 3:01 when Cameron Forte hit two free throws. When Georgia's Taylor Echols, a former walk-on, hit a 3-pointer with 44 seconds in the half, the Bulldogs had a chance to lead at intermission.
But Auburn's Harrell hit a jumper as the buzzer sounded to make it 29-28 at the half.
In the second half, Georgia trailed 42-39 with 11:38 to play after Auburn's Harrell scored from the baseline. But over the next 2½ minutes, the Bulldogs went on a 9-0 run, ignited by Gaines.
First, he hit a pair of free throws. On Georgia's next possession, he hit a put-back following three misses by his teammates. The capacity crowd of 10,523 came to its feet when he fielded an alley-oop pass from Marcus Thornton, turned 180 degrees and banked it in.
Forte punctuated the run with an interception at midcourt leading to a breakaway slam and follow-up free throw. That made it 48-42 with 9:05 to play.
Georgia's biggest lead came after a Thornton 3-point play with 5:17 to play made it 57-48.
But Auburn chipped away. In the last three minutes, Harrell hit two 3-pointers, a layup and one free throw.
