SEC title at stake for No. 14 Auburn vs. South Carolina (Mar 02, 2018)
A win Saturday over visiting South Carolina will give No. 14 Auburn the SEC regular-season title while ending a two-game skid.
A victory by South Carolina (16-14, 10-7 SEC) will give the Gamecocks a regular-season sweep of the Tigers and continue their strong showing against ranked teams this season.
South Carolina is 3-3 against ranked opponents, which includes an 84-75 win over then-No. 10 Auburn two weeks ago in Columbia, S.C. It was the largest margin of defeat that the Tigers (24-6, 12-5) have suffered in the SEC this season.
In each of the three losses to ranked teams, South Carolina was only one possession down with less than three minutes remaining.
"You can actually sit there and say we could have been 6-0 against ranked opponents. ... That's the optimist in me," said South Carolina coach Frank Martin, whose team will secure a first-round bye in next week's SEC Tournament in St. Louis with a win.
South Carolina has won four of the last five games in the series, prompting Auburn coach Bruce Pearl to joke that Martin "must have my number."
In the first meeting, Auburn shot only 18.5 percent from 3-point range and committed 16 turnovers. South Carolina led by as many as 26 points in the first half.
Auburn 6-foot-7 forward Anfernee McLemore suffered a grotesque season-ending dislocated ankle injury in the game. He was averaging 7.4 points and 5.3 rebounds per game.
South Carolina has a decided advantage over Auburn with 6-9, 225-pound post player Chris Silva, who is averaging 13.7 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. He had 14 points and 11 rebounds in the first game against Auburn.
Graduate transfer guard Frank Booker made four 3-pointers and finished with 19 points for the Gamecocks.
"Teams that have beaten South Carolina are teams that do very well defending the post with good size to kind of neutralize Silva," Pearl said. "That's obviously been a problem for us. And teams that are able to hold South Carolina to under 70 points win. South Carolina is 13-1 this year when they score more than 70. Those are all the reasons why it's a tough matchup for us."
Auburn allowed 91 points against Arkansas on Tuesday night, three days after mustering only 66 points in a road loss to Florida.
The Tigers have struggled to find consistency since McLemore's injury and after junior shooting guard Bryce Brown started suffering shoulder and foot injuries during the past month.
Brown has made 7 of 39 attempts from the field in the last four games and has appeared to be a step slow on defense.
"Since Bryce's injury, his percentages are down, so obviously his foot, the shoulder, his getting his time in the gym, all those things are factors, along with how people are guarding him," Pearl said. "So you put all that together, I don't anticipate Bryce staying in a shooting slump. He won't."
Auburn has not won an SEC title since 1999.
"We get to go in there and deal with them, so we're excited," Martin said, tongue-in-cheek. "It's going to be hard. It's going to be absolutely nuts."
