Auburn looking to avoid letdown in Columbia
It's home stretch time for the regular season.
Auburn has two games in its season before postseason play, and it's the lightest stretch of the season.
It'll start in Columbia where Auburn will play its final road game of the season against Missouri.
After making the NCAA Tournament in Dennis Gates' first season, Mizzou has been dreadful in year two as it sits at 8-22 on the season and 0-16 in conference play.
Despite the brutal season, Bruce Pearl and Auburn, knowing that seeding is on the line, aren't taking the other Tigers lightly.
"Missouri has played everybody tough," Pearl said. "They have not laid down. They have not quit. They play as hard as anyone in the league. They’ve got three great guards that can really score and take over games. It’s senior night at Missouri, I can’t imagine the intensity and passion those guys are going to play with to get the victory. But it means a lot to us too."
Missouri currently sits at No. 151 in the NET rankings making it a quad-3 game for Auburn.
Auburn is currently projected as a four-seed in the NCAA Tournament, but a loss in Columbia would likely knock Auburn down a seed line.
"A loss to a team whose math is so compromised would set us back," Pearl said. "You talk about a body of work, the body of work has been there all year long. There's a lot of reasons why we'd like to play well, and again, we're playing our best basketball coming down the stretch."
As a team, Missouri doesn't do much well. The Tigers are No. 145 on KenPom behind the likes of St. Thomas and Furman. The Tigers adjusted offensive and defensive ratings are both outside the top 100 in the country.
It's not all bad as the Tigers have a quality guard trio in Sean East II, Tamar Bates and Nick Honor.
It's been a struggle pretty much every where for the Tigers, but their best player, East hasn't struggled in the slightest.
On the season, East is averaging 17.5 points and 4.1 assists per game on 63.6 true shooting. In his last five games, East is averaging 25.8 points on 73 percent true shooting.
When he shoots them, East is a great three-point shooter, but he's only taken 73 on the season. Per Synergy, 42.2 percent of his possessions come from him operating out of the pick-and-roll where he produces 0.995 points per possession which ranks in the 87th percentile.
After two seasons at Indiana, Bates transferred to Missouri and saw his numbers elevate as he's averaging 13.6 points per game on a true shooting of 60.7 percent.
Honor is Mizzou's three-point sniper as he shoots 38 percent from deep on six attempts per game. He averages 1.32 points per possession on catch-and-shoot jumpers which ranks in the 93rd percentile.
Outside of those three, there's not much to write home about.
Missouri is especially bad defensively as it has an adjusted defensive rating of 116.5 in conference play which is dead last in the SEC.
The Tigers are No. 272 in the country in offensive rebound rate and No. 356 in defensive rebound rate, and with Johni Broome and Dylan Cardwell, Auburn has the ideal personnel to exploit that.
So despite their horrid record and numbers, Pearl expects a close game, and it's not an insane thought.
Despite being winless in conference play, Missouri has managed to be close in quite a few games, especially recently. In its last five, the Tigers have lost by three in Oxford; lost by five at home against Tennessee; lost by 15 in Fayetteville; lost by nine in Gainesville and by six at home against Ole Miss.
It's a game Auburn is taking seriously.
"This team has got a chance to have a winning road record in the SEC with a victory," Pearl said. "That obviously matters, and it would be the third time in the last seven years that we have a winning record on the road. We know we've won a bunch of games by 10 points or more. This is probably not going to be one of those type wins if we can get it. The margin should be within 10 either way."
Auburn and Missouri tip off at 8 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.