Looking for a second consecutive win in Tuscaloosa, and a Quad I win to bolster its NCAA Tournament resume and push it off the bubble, Auburn basketball travels to Coleman Coliseum Saturday night for the regular-season finale with No. 16 Alabama.
“They got one on us, and us being able to go to their place and get this W is going to mean a lot,” said Auburn sophomore Elyjah Freeman. “That’s been our mindset all week. “We’ve got to be able to not let their momentum build up and not let it control the game.”
Alabama boasts the nation's No. 1 scoring offense and also leads the country in 3-point attempts (35.8) and 3-pointers made (13) per game.
Meanwhile, Auburn has struggled to defend the 3-point line, entering this one with the 350th-worst 3-point defense percentage, allowing a 37.3% clip from deep per game.
“They shoot the ball at an incredibly high level,” said Auburn head coach Steven Pearl. “Every time teams break down on the defensive end, they make you pay for it. They’re going to get shots up before they turn it over, usually, but we’ve got to do some things defensively to try to disrupt them. If we can create turnovers, we can get out in transition and run a little bit.”
In the previous matchup, Auburn controlled the first half and a portion of the second before the Crimson Tide took over with under 14 minutes to play.
Auburn scored 92 points, which was only its third 90-point outing in SEC play at the time, but Alabama’s Labaron Philon poured in 25 points and fueled Alabama’s 52% clip from beyond the arc, its highest of the season at that time.
“That’s the plan, to look at the things we did well, try and do more of those, and look at the things they made us pay for and try not to do those,” Pearl said.
Auburn point guard Tahaad Pettiford is playing his best basketball down the stretch. He has scored 20-plus in six of his last eight games and is averaging 15.1 ppg overall. Coming off a 27-point performance against LSU, where he added six assists and four steals, Pettiford averages 19 points and 4.3 assists in three appearances versus the Tide in his career.
Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. on ESPN at Coleman Coliseum.
“We need a great effort on Saturday to beat a really good team,” Pearl said.
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