AUBURN | If No. 11 Auburn can get through moving week with two more wins, it’ll put the Tigers in great position to make a run for the SEC regular season championship over the final eight conference games.
Auburn knocked off No. 13 Kentucky Saturday, but very tough tests await with a road trip to Arkansas Tuesday night and a Saturday morning home showdown against No. 18 LSU.
The Razorbacks are 11-2 at home and the Tigers have won just four times in Fayetteville in program history: 1993, 2003, 2009 and 2016. With a victory, Bruce Pearl can become the first coach in AU history with two wins at Arkansas.
“They're a very unique team,” Pearl said. “They have three of the top-10 scorers in our league, and Mason Jones is the leading scorer overall. He goes to the foul line 7.5 times in 40 minutes, does a great job of drawing fouls. Isaiah Joe is a great shooter. And the kid, (Jimmy) Whitt, is an incredible mid-range jump shooter. And they're very undersized.
“They are last in the league in rebounding, but they fly around and swarm to the ball. And you got to figure out how to take advantage of mismatches-- and it's probably an area offensively that I don't think we do a very good job of recognizing mismatches either on the perimeter or on the inside.”
Auburn’s biggest advantage should be centers Austin Wiley and Anfernee McLemore inside against the Razorbacks’ 6-foot-8 center Reggie Chaney, who has just 10 blocked shots this season.
Joe, the Hawgs second-leading scorer averaging 16.0 points per games, is trying to play through an inflamed knee. He missed the TCU game Jan. 25 and was held scoreless in 21 minutes in a win at Alabama Saturday.
While Arkansas is not a powerful inside team, its dominated opponents on the perimeter. The Hawgs are third in the conference with 153 made 3-pointers and are holding opponents to an SEC-low .247 shooting from beyond the arc. Arkansas also leads the league in steals averaging 8.6 per game and turnover margin at +5.1.
“Matchups are difficult because they are so much smaller than we are and quicker,” Pearl said. “And you know the guards are big. They've got good sized guards. But then how to take advantage of it. We've got to do a great job on the offense boards. We got to do a great job throwing it inside, catching it inside, not turning it over when they strip and rip. They turn you over like crazy. So on our drive stuff, they're going to be stripping and ripping and we got to be strong with the ball.”
Tip-off at Bud Walton Arena is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT on SEC Network. Pearl is expecting all 19,200 seats to be filled.
“Obviously, this will be the most hostile environment that we've played in because the place is sold out, and it will be just jumping,” Pearl said. “We'll have to handle the atmosphere. And we’ve not played great on the road. We’re 3-2 on the road, I think, in true road games.
“The last three games on the road at Florida and at Alabama and at Ole Miss, we haven’t played very well. So we’re absolutely going to have to have our best game, not turn it over, and figure out how to guard them.”
