AUBURN | No. 13 Auburn doesn’t have a lot to gain, but has everything to lose Wednesday night at Georgia.

The Tigers, in a tight race for the SEC regular season championship, can’t afford a fourth conference loss while even a road win over the Bulldogs won’t do much to enhance AU’s postseason resume.

“The math doesn’t help us because while they still would be a Quadrant 2 opponent, they’re about 100 in the NET,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “And kind of like Missouri, yeah, it’s a tough place to play, hard to win on the road, but if we’re going to be in this conference championship race, we have to win this game.

“Strong statement with seven games left but I’ve always kind of kept it real with my team.”

Auburn, 22-3 overall and 9-3 in the SEC, is currently second in the conference, 1.5 games behind Kentucky after the Wildcats improved to 11-2 with a win at LSU Tuesday night. LSU and Florida are tied for third at 9-4 and South Carolina is fifth at 8-4.

AU already has wins over LSU and Kentucky but faces a rematch against the Wildcats Feb. 29 in Lexington.

“We've got to go to Lexington, and that's going to be a real challenge. So I look at it this way: the Georgia win is a must-win if we're going to stay in this conference championship race,” Pearl said.

Auburn beat Georgia 82-60 at home Jan. 11, and the Bulldogs enter the game 12-13 overall and 2-10 in the SEC, losers of eight of their last nine games. The Tigers held SEC Freshman of the Year candidate Anthony Edwards to 18 points on 6 of 15 shooting in the first matchup, but that was with AU’s best man-to-man defender, Isaac Okoro, who missed Saturday’s loss at Missouri with a hamstring injury and is questionable for the UGA game.

Okoro didn’t practice Monday but is scheduled to travel with the Tigers to Athens.

“We did a really good job overall on Anthony Edwards. I mean, he was a huge focus for us as far as the scout was concerned,” Pearl said. “But I think what makes Georgia such a dangerous team is they’ve got lots of different pieces. They’ve become one of the better offensive rebounding teams in our league. Defensively, they’re third in the league in steals. They’re fourth in the league in scoring, so they do score. They play better at home.

“I don’t know what the stat is on 12 SEC games, but I bet you in 10 of them they’ve had leads. I think the only game I can think of from a scouting standpoint was at home against South Carolina. Other than that, they’ve been right there.”

Tip-off at Stegeman Coliseum is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2.