NASHVILLE | No. 3 Auburn will face Ole Miss for the third time this season on Friday in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament after the Rebels downed Arkansas, 83-80, thanks to a Sean Pedulla three with two seconds left on Thursday.
The Tigers won the first two matchups, 92-82 on February 1 in Oxford and 106-76 on February 26 in Neville Arena. Bruce Pearl’s squad enters the conference tournament looking to get some swagger back after dropping the last two regular-season games.
“For us, we don’t have a great taste in our mouth, having lost the last two games of the year,” the Auburn coach said. But we lost to two teams that are Sweet 16-caliber teams. And the team that we’ll play in the opening round, we’ll see, but it’ll also be a Quad 1 game.”
Injuries to Denver Jones, Johni Broome and Chad Baker-Mazara hurt the Tigers a little bit down the stretch, but the SEC regular-season champions have been a little lucky with their health heading into the weekend.
“I think everybody is banged up a little bit, but I think we’re coming into it pretty healthy, to be honest with you,” Pearl said. “In a sense that I think Denver is probably, feels a little bit better. Chad probably feels a little bit better. Johni is getting back to 100% so you’re right, not to discount any of those injuries, but I do feel like, gosh, we could be in a lot worse shape. We took Sunday off, and we worked Monday, Tuesday, and now here Wednesday, just on us. We’ve just really been working on us.”
Broome, the SEC Player of the Year and Sporting News National Player of the Year, thinks the last few days have been beneficial for himself and his team.
“We’re definitely itching to play somebody else again,” he said. “I think these last two days were great because we’re working on ourselves. We’re critiquing what Auburn has to do, and it’s been very beneficial to us.”
The Rebels have six players who average double-digits in points, led by Pedulla (15.1) and Jaemyn Brakefield (11.2). Malik Dia, the team’s leading rebounder, led Chris Beard’s squad in the win against the Razorbacks with 19 points while pulling down eight rebounds.
Auburn and Ole Miss tip off at noon CT in Bridgestone Arena, with the game airing on ESPN.
