AUBURN | Bruce Pearl put it succinctly at the end of his press conference previewing Wednesday night’s game between No. 13 Auburn and No. 11 South Carolina.

“We worked all spring, summer and fall to get to right here, right now,” said Pearl.

The two teams will meet as ranked opponents for the first time in series history.

The Gamecocks enter the matchup riding a seven-game winning streak and tied with No. 15 Alabama for first in the SEC at 9-2. Auburn, 8-3 in the league, is a game behind in third and No. 8 Tennessee, 7-3, is 1.5 games back in fourth.

Two more 6-4 teams — No. 22 Kentucky and Florida — are just two games back with four weeks left in the regular season.

“We’re right there,” said center Johni Broome. “South Carolina is above us. Alabama is above us, I think. We play the No. 2 team on Wednesday. That just brings us one step closer to achieving our goal.”

The next couple of weeks will be crucial for the Tigers. After the USC game, AU hosts Kentucky and then gets a week off before back-to-back road games at Georgia and Tennessee.

“These two games really do matter if we're going to be SEC regular season champions or not, so we're going to step it up,” said forward Chaney Johnson.

Auburn has won five regular season conference titles in program history with two — 2018 and 2022 — coming under Pearl. AU’s 10th-year head coach has also guided AU to one of its two SEC Tournament championships in 2019.

“We've been talking all season about being in position to be in position, and that's where we find ourselves,” said Pearl. “If we want to win the championship, we have to beat South Carolina tomorrow. Pretty simple.”

Tip-off at Neville Arena is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT on SEC Network.