AUBURN, Alabama — As Auburn prepares for its final SEC road game with a chance to clinch at least a share of the league’s regular-season basketball championship, Coach Bruce Pearl said his Tigers will face a talented team from Mississippi State on Wednesday.
“It’s a good roster,” the Auburn head coach said. “It’s a list that everyone thought they could make some noise this year. In a lot of ways, they did. They’re 52 in the net (ranking), which puts them in that bubble range (tournament NCAA).
“Obviously they’re looking at this to help them get into the tournament because of the math that a game like this presents to them,” said Pearl, whose Tigers are ranked No. 5 in polls this week and No. 11 in the net ranking. .
Auburn will go 25-4 in Starkville with a 13-3 SEC mark. With a win, the Tigers, who have a one-game lead over Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee in league standings, will at least share the league title and if the Tigers follow it up with a home win Saturday against South Carolina, they will. need no help to be the only SEC champions.
The game at Humphrey Coliseum in Starkville is scheduled for an 8 p.m. CST start with television coverage on the SEC Network.
The Bulldogs are 17-12 overall and 8-8 in the SEC with seven of their wins and just one league loss at home. They feature one of the best guards in the league, Iverson Molinarand received a boost from the return of their best big man, Tolu Smithwho missed 13 games due to injury.
Molinar, a 6-3, 190 junior from Panama, is averaging 18.1 points and 3.66 assists while making 87.5% of his 160 foul shots. He is the SEC’s third-leading scorer behind Vanderbilt’s Scotty Pippen of 20.2 and Arkansas’ JD Notae who averages 19.1.
Smith, a 6-11, 245 redshirt junior, is averaging 13.0 points and 5.8 rebounds while shooting 56.6 percent from the field. He played as a freshman at Western Kentucky before returning closer to home to compete for the Bulldogs. Smith scored 22 points while adding eight rebounds in his team’s 74-69 win Saturday over Vandy. He has scored 43 points in his last two games.
Garrison Brooks, Walker Kessler’s teammate last season at North Carolina, is a 6-9, 230 graduate transfer. He’s averaging 10.8 points and 6.8 rebounds. He is from LaFayette, Alabama and graduated from Auburn High School.
DJ Jeffries, a 6-7, 215 junior forward, is averaging 9.6 points and 4.5 rebounds. He’s a transfer from Memphis.
Shakeel Moore contributes 8.8 points and 2.9 rebounds per game for the Bulldogs. He’s a 6-1, 185 guard, who transferred from North Carolina State.
“They do some things very, very well,” Pearl said of the Bulldogs. “They are second in the league in field goal percentage (45.9) and they do a great job with their two-point field goal percentages because they do a great job of getting the ball on the board and let him in.
“Probably the most alarming thing about them is that they’re scoring a very high percentage of their runs from the foul line,” Pearl pointed out. “They’re 14th, I think, in the nation in free throws made and they’re 11th in the nation in free throws attempted.”
The Bulldogs have 446-619 foul shots this year while their opponents are 325-441. Auburn made 425-578 free throws while their opponents made 443-603.
“There’s no doubt that foul issues will be a challenge for us,” said Pearl, who added, “We’ve fould too much in league play. Teams are scoring 24% of their points against us on the foul line, so it’s good to be able to block shots and be aggressive defensively, but we have to be able to do it flawlessly.
“We have to do a better job of getting to the foul line,” added Pearl. In SEC play, Auburn shot 251-340 free throws while their opponents shot 264-347.
Auburn leads the series 79-70 and is 27-44 in games played in Starkville and 14-29 at Humphrey Coliseum. The teams last met in March 2021 with the Tigers’ 78-71 win at Auburn, a third straight win in the series for Pearl’s side.