AUBURN — Coming off its most embarrassing loss of the year, Auburn's season is on a tipping point.

The Tigers (18-9, 7-7 SEC) travel to Athens on Wednesday to play a reeling Bulldogs team (10-17, 1-13 SEC) that hasn't won a conference game in 49 days.

Here are the five storylines to follow heading into that matchup.

Nobody at Auburn denies the Kentucky blowout was a letdown.

Bruce Pearl told his team on the pregame CBS broadcast the Rupp Arena matchup gave Auburn a chance to prove to themselves and everyone else it's a national championship contender. Since the 27-point loss, Pearl has admitted the confidence going into that game is what stung the most.

"I think we’re all disappointed, because we really felt — I thought our mindset going there was that we were in a good place," Pearl said.

The sting that loss provided can carry over to the next game.

Tigers point guard Jared Harper ensured that can't happen — and that's been Pearl's No. 1 post-defeat message.

"Our response is just not to get — overwhelmed with the loss, I guess. It's one game," Harper said. "Like BP said, we don't want to turn this into three games. Just trying to get over it quick, learn from what happened and move on to the next game."

The Georgia game is a big one for Auburn for many reasons. It's a rivalry game. Many of the Tigers' players from Georgia play with a chip against the Bulldogs because they weren't recruited by the in-state school. In this specific instance, it's a must-have for Auburn to stay off the bubble.

But Harper's motivations stem from the reminder of what happened in Rupp Arena over the weekend.

"I'm gonna be up for this game more because we're coming off a loss at Kentucky," Harper said."This is a crucial game for us. Playing on the road -- Georgia is a good team at home. And I feel like we definitely need this win."

There are two ways to look at this Georgia basketball team.

The first, and the most obvious: The Bulldogs have lost 12-straight SEC games since they played the Tigers in Auburn Arena on Jan. 12. Georgia has a whopping one SEC win this season — over winless-in-conference Vanderbilt all the way back on Jan. 9. This is a team that hasn't been able to win games, and a tournament-caliber team like Auburn shouldn't have an issue.

The other: Well, let Pearl take it from here.

"Georgia, like the teams at the bottom of our league, whether it be Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, or Missouri, are all alive and well. They are fully engaged. They all know that they’re good enough to beat anybody on any given Sunday, so to speak," Pearl said. "The last three games for Georgia, they’ve lost in a last-possession game to LSU, who sits at the top of our league. They lost on the free-throw line against Mississippi State by one on a last-second play, and they lost by one at Ole Miss. So throw out Georgia’s record right now. They’re a pretty good basketball team."

The task will be toughened by the road environment.

Auburn's only two SEC road wins this season came to bottom-of-the-league teams Vanderbilt and Texas A&M. The trip to Athens is another opportunity to grab one and avoid a bad loss. Surprisingly, as Pearl pointed out Tuesday, Georgia ranks fourth in the Southeastern Conference in attendance behind Kentucky, Florida and Auburn.

"They're definitely going to fight all the way until the end," Harper said."They have some great players who are able to spread the floor at all five positions, which is similar to us. They shoot the ball well, too. So, it's going to be a good game. I think they definitely improved just playing against the teams that they've been playing. Playing close. They've been in, I think pretty much almost every game. So it's gonna be a good game."

Chuma Okeke may not have extra motivation against Georgia, but the other three Auburn players from the Peach State do.

There are four Georgia players on Auburn's roster: Okeke, Jared Harper, Bryce Brown and Anfernee McLemore. When they suit up against the Bulldogs, even though they've been doing it for a couple years now, it's personal. That's a one of many reasons why Auburn rides into Athens with a three-game winning streak against Georgia, which Pearl deemed "rare."

Pearl isn't surprised. After all, most of these guys weren't recruited by Georgia.

"Here is the thing and it is one of the things we do focus on a lot and I use it as sort of a chip on our shoulder, our Georgia kids aren’t here because Georgia didn’t want them," Pearl said. "Georgia wanted Chuma, for sure, but they didn’t recruit Jared, they didn’t recruit Bryce, they didn’t recruit Anfernee. They took other Georgia kids over those kids, so yeah, it would like a kid from Lower Alabama at Georgia I didn’t recruit because I didn’t think they were good enough. Definitely, there is definitely that motivation for our players."

It's more complex than that, however.

Pearl said immediately after the win in Auburn Arena earlier this year how important it is for Auburn — as a program, in general — to beat Georgia. It's especially so with Tom Crean revitalizing Georgia in recruiting with the pickup of 5-star guard Anthony Edwards.

An opportunity to extend to a four-game winning streak against the Bulldogs is welcomed by Pearl.

"We recruit in Georgia. Atlanta is a great base for us. Georgia just recently got a commitment from one of the top two or three players in the country so Coach Crean is going to start building a fence around that state making it more difficult for us to go in there," Pearl said. "Auburn is always going to be able to go to Georgia in all sports and be able to get good players because we have done a great job with our Georgia kids. They have graduated and gone on and done well, so from that standpoint, it is an important game."

'Tis the season for conversation about quadrants and NET rankings.

The new college basketball metric for evaluating teams has shifted how coaches think. Early in the season, Pearl dismissed the notion he'd look at NET rankings on a nightly basis. The idea: If you play good enough basketball, you don't have to worry about it.

Harper stands by that ideology, which as a player, is probably the right mentality to have.

"I have never looked into stuff like that. I just think that, the team we want to be, we have to win tough games on the road," Harper said. "And this game against Georgia on the road, and next week against Alabama are both gonna be tough games on the road. So I think those are must-wins for us if we want to make the tournament."

Pearl hasn't been able to block out the numbers so easily.

The NET ranking numbers determine each team's Quadrant 1-4 records. That's being weighed as a serious tournament metric, so coaches are paying attention.

He rattled off the approximate NET rankings for Auburn's final four opponents — "Tennessee is inside of 10," "Mississippi State is in the 30s somewhere," "Alabama is probably in the mid-50s" and "Georgia, right now, is 111 in the net." OK, so he only has it to an exact science down to his immediately upcoming opponent. Mississippi State and Alabama were actually slightly better than Pearl's estimation.

Auburn sits at No. 24 in the NET rankings.

But Pearl's point: At 111, Auburn can't afford a loss to Georgia at this stage.

"So the Georgia number would be a number you would like to try to avoid a loss against the No. 111 [ranked team]," Pearl said. "So we’ve put ourselves in position to play our way in or out of whatever it is that’s going to be. What more can you ask for, right?"

Let's wrap up with a statistical dive:

• With two 3-pointers, Bryce Brown would move into solo fifth place all-time in SEC history in career 3-pointers made. He would pass former Ole Miss guard Chris Warren.

• If Auburn wins in Stegeman Coliseum, it'll be the first time since 1980 (jokes encouraged) the Tigers won back-to-back games at Georgia.

• An interesting tidbit from the Auburn game notes: "The lucky number for Auburn this year has been 80. When the Tigers put up 80 or more on the scoreboard, they are 12-2. Conversely, Auburn is 1-6 when allowing 80 or more points in a game this season."

• This will be the 188th time Auburn and Georgia face off in basketball. The series record? 94-94.

• KenPom gives Auburn a 76 percent chance to win this game. The Tigers are favored by 7.5 or 8 points on most sports books.