AUBURN | The grind of a season is a common refrain you hear from coaches in most every sport.

But Auburn’s 2024-25 season has been a grind and then some.

The top-ranked Tigers are 17-1 and 5-0 in the SEC against a schedule that includes seven ranked teams and 11 Quad 1 games.

The remaining 13 games on Auburn’s regular season schedule includes at least eight ranked teams and 11 Quad 1 games.

It doesn’t get much tougher than that.

“Just embrace the grind, and we’ve been embracing the grind since the summer time and that’s really truly it,” said AU coach Bruce Pearl. “The guys understand what it is, how hard it is to get excited and play every night. What we do doesn’t work without great effort and energy.

“They’ve seen it, they recognize it and when they bring it, it gives us a fighting chance. They want to win. And that’s what every team’s got to do. You can’t get too happy and you can’t let losses or a bad shooting night or, even during the course of the game, one missed free throw can’t contribute to the next one.”

The Tigers get a short break from the grind this midweek with a bye but will be back in acton Saturday against No. 6 Tennessee, and then play twice a week for the final six weeks of the regular season.

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