The Auburn basketball team welcomes #11 South Carolina to Neville Arena tonight, and here's what coaches and players had to say about the game
The Tigers will face a big challenge on their home turf tonight in a ranked matchup. #13 Auburn will take on #11 South Carolina in a midweek contest on the Plains. Auburn basketball is coming off a tough road loss from the Florida Gators, who blew out the Tigers 81-65 over the weekend in Gainesville.
With the regular season winding down, the Tigers are in the hunt for the SEC title, but will absolutely have to beat South Carolina if they want to win it. Head coach Bruce Pearl said as much, and noted that the Tigers will have to work to force the Gamecocks into a quicker pace than they prefer to play, per Auburn Daily:
"We'll try to speed them up when possible," Pearl said. "You just got to understand what they like to do offensively, what's the best way to take away those things defensively and try to lock into a gameplan. We don't play defensively the same way every night. We play hard every night."
For big man Johni Broome, it's a hugely important game that has implications on the SEC title and he is glad to be playing two games in a row at home in front of the Jungle:
"We got two great teams at our home court in the Jungle," Broome said. "I feel like we can bounce back pretty quick. This is a very important week for us. We talked about winning the SEC Championship, this is a very important week for us to do that."
Tonight's game will tip off at 7:30 p.m. central time from Neville Arena and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.