AUBURN | After its first two losses this season, No. 1 Auburn responded with a string of impressive wins. Bruce Pearl is counting on the Tigers to do the same this week.

Auburn was physically dominated in an 83-72 loss at No. 22 Texas A&M Tuesday night, and closes out the regular season against No. 7 Alabama Saturday.

“We'll be excited about playing at home on Saturday,” Pearl told the Auburn Network. “We've got the conference championship wrapped up. We'd like to try to wrap up the No. 1 seed. We think the resume is strong enough to get the No. 1 seed overall, which I think is important.

“But more importantly, I just want to see how we respond. How do we respond?”

After a Dec. 4 loss at No. 9 Duke, AU beat Ohio State and No. 16 Purdue on neutral courts, and opened up conference play with nine consecutive wins.

After a home loss to No. 6 Florida Feb. 8, AU reeled off six consecutive wins including a 1 vs. 2 matchup against the Tide in Tuscaloosa.

This battle against Alabama will include Senior Day and a celebration of the SEC Championship the Tigers clinched with a 94-78 win at Kentucky last Saturday.

“You'd like to be playing your best basketball heading into the postseason," said Pearl. "Obviously, tonight wasn't it. We obviously played some great basketball, again, the six or seven games prior, after the Florida game. We clearly picked that up.”

Tip-off at Neville Arena is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. CT on ESPN.