AUBURN — Getting out of its midweek matchup against Arkansas unscathed, the top-ranked Tigers will invite a familiar foe in the Georgia Bulldogs to Neville Arena on Saturday for another SEC showdown.
The Bulldogs (16-10, 4-9) sit at 12th in the SEC and are one of three – Ole Miss and Alabama being the others – teams in which the Tigers will play a home-and-home with this season. In the squad’s last matchup, Auburn came out on top in the final seconds, 70-68, without Johni Broome.
Auburn big man Dylan Cardwell expects the Bulldogs to show some similarities from the first outing.
“Georgia, obviously they’re the Bulldogs, they have that dog in them,” Cardwell said. “If they go down, they're going to try to get back in the games. They're very physical, and they rebound really well. But they just have a tenacity about them that really every team has.”
The Bulldogs have lost three straight against top-25 teams and have not won a ranked matchup since taking down then-No. 17 Oklahoma in their third conference matchup of the season, though they’re fighting to make some noise in the final stretch of the season, and that starts with knocking down the nation’s best team.
“This probably moves them from being off the bubble, or wherever they’re at, they’re close to being right in the tournament. And so, you say to your guys, ‘Hey we might not be better than Auburn, but we can be 40 minutes better than Auburn,” Pearl said of the Bulldogs' motivation heading into the game.”
Freshman big man Asa Newell continues to lead the way for the Bulldogs with 15.3 points and 6.8 rebounds per game. He recorded a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds in the last matchup. He is joined by Silas Demary, Jr. and Dakota Leffew with 11.9 and 10.3 points per game, respectively. The trio lead the way for an offense averaging 75 points per game.
“I think it's obviously going to be a huge boost for us. He's the best player in college basketball,” Pearl said of getting Broome back to help defend Newell. “This is a very good frontline and Asa Newell will be a lottery pick as power forward.”
The Tigers, 11-1 on their home court this season, come into the matchup with the fifth-best scoring offense in the nation at 84.4 points per game, though Georgia ranks 36th in the nation in holding opponents to 40.7 points per game.
“Georgia is a top 35 defensive team in the country. They average 5.5 blocks, which is 10th nationally. They're 18th nationally at holding teams down at the 3- point line, about 29%. So this is a team that plays really hard, really physically, and is really locked in defensively,” Pearl said.
Tipoff is set for 3 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN.
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