A little extra for Auburn to play for at Mississippi State
Auburn can avoid a first-day game in the SEC Tournament with a win at Mississippi State and a little help.
AUBURN | Auburn has a little bit extra to play for as it closes out the regular season at Mississippi State Saturday.
A win over the Bulldogs and an Ole Miss win over Tennessee would force a three-game tie for 11th place in the SEC. Auburn would win the tiebreaker if Kentucky beats LSU.
The 11th seed in the SEC Tournament doesn’t play until Thursday while the 12th and 13th seeds play on Wednesday. With Missouri self-imposing a postseason ban, there will only be 13 teams in this year’s tournament, which will take place in Nashville March 9-13.
If Tennessee beats Ole Miss, however, Auburn and Mississippi State will play each other in the first round Wednesday regardless of the outcome of Saturday's game in Starkville.
“It does bring some more meaning to the game if Kentucky beats LSU, if Ole Miss beats Tennessee, we’re playing Mississippi State for the 11-seed, and that would be something worth playing for to not have to play on the first day,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said.
To accomplish that goal, the Tigers must beat a Bulldog team that has wins over Vanderbilt and South Carolina and a two-point loss at Texas A&M in its last five games.
Senior forward Gavin Ware leads MSU averaging 16.0 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. Senior guard Craig Sword is averaging 12.9 points.
“Right now, they're playing great defense, playing real aggressively,” Pearl said. “I've always been a huge fan of Gavin Ware. It kills me that Craig Sword from Montgomery, Ala., kills us all the time, every time he plays against us.”
A total of 10 Auburn players have combined to miss 117 games this season but the Tigers will head to Mississippi State in as healthy as they’ve been since December.
“We're as healthy as we've been right now in a while,” Pearl said. “We have an opportunity. I felt that way against Texas A&M and we didn't take advantage of it so obviously disappointed. We probably have too many hot and cold players that don't play with the kind of consistently that you need to have to be able to put a run together.”
Tip-off at Humphrey Coliseum is set for 1:30 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.