Hours after Auburn saw its 28-game home winning streak and five-game overall winning streak snapped against Texas A&M, Bruce Pearl joined the Auburn Tip-Off Club for breakfast Thursday morning.
At the start of the meeting, Auburn team chaplain Jeremy Napier opened with a prayer from Psalm 23, which contains the familiar verse of “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” As Pearl listened to Napier recite the prayer, he couldn’t help but take a moment to laugh to himself.
“We lose one game at Neville Arena, and we’re already on Psalm 23,” Pearl joked Thursday afternoon. “I said, ‘Jeremy, you maybe wanted to wait a couple weeks before we went to Psalm 23.’... He was a little quick on the trigger for that.”
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Auburn’s 79-63 loss to Texas A&M on Wednesday was a disappointing one for the program, to be sure. It was the Tigers’ first home loss in nearly two full years, but more importantly it was a missed opportunity for another resume-building win against an NCAA Tournament-caliber team. The game against the Aggies — who are currently 42nd in NET — was a Quad 2 matchup, and the loss dropped the Tigers to 6-2 in such games this season.
Though Auburn missed out on that opportunity at home, the good—albeit challenging—news for Pearl’s team is that the Tigers’ remaining schedule contains no shortage of chances to strengthen their postseason resume. Of Auburn’s 11 remaining regular-season games, seven currently stand as potential Quad 1 matchups, while there are two apiece in Quad 2 and Quad 3.
“People are going to look at the schedule, you certainly look at it and go ‘Wow,’” Pearl said. “This is probably the toughest 12-game stretch I can ever remember in my career. But at the same time, it’s an incredible opportunity.”
That daunting stretch over the final month-plus of the season, which began with the loss to Texas A&M, continues Saturday with the Big 12/SEC Challenge, when No. 15 Auburn (16-4) hits the road to take on West Virginia (12-8) at 11 a.m. CT in Morgantown, West Virginia. The Mountaineers are 25th in NET, making the matchup an opportunity for the Tigers to pick up a big Quad 1 win.
Auburn is currently 2-2 in Quad 1 games, with wins against Arkansas and Northwestern, and losses to Memphis and USC.
“It’s a big challenge, with the Big 12 being a great conference this year,” Auburn guard Zep Jasper said. “It’s always a great conference, but this will be a Quad 1 win if we can get it. I believe they’re a top-50 type of team. I believe those guys will be looking forward to playing us, too, especially being a ranked team. The SEC/Big 12 is a point to prove, and I feel like we have a point to prove.”
West Virginia is just 12-8 on the season, but Bob Huggins’ team is 8-3 at home and has played a whopping 12 Quad 1 games already this season. The Mountaineers are just 4-8 in those matchups, with wins against TCU at home, Florida on a neutral court and on the road against Pittsburgh and Texas Tech. Of their eight Quad 1 losses, five have been by single digits — including three decided by six points or fewer.
In West Virginia, Auburn will face a team that looks eerily similar to the one it just hosted at Neville Arena on Wednesday night. Pearl likened the Mountaineers to the Aggies, stylistically — “tough, physical, hardnosed” — and believes the Tigers will see a similar defensive philosophy from Bob Huggins’ team to the aggressive, trapping scheme Buzz Williams utilized to great success the other night on the Plains, as well as an offense that isn’t afraid to create contact inside and get to the free-throw line. West Virginia is 13th in the nation in free-throw attempts per game (24.1) and 12th in makes from the charity stripe (17.1); Texas A&M is ninth in attempts and fifth in makes. The Mountaineers are also 48th nationally in forced turnovers per game (15.4) while forcing turnovers on 19.4 percent of their opponents’ possessions.
Also like Texas A&M, West Virginia isn’t likely to finish at the top of its conference — in fact, the Mountaineers are closer to the bottom of a deep Big 12 right now — but they’re clearly good enough and have the type of schedule that sets them up to be a tournament-caliber team, or at least in the bubble discussion. Along with being 33rd in NET, West Virginia is currently projected as a potential 11-seed in the NCAA Tournament, according to Bracket Matrix, which weighs projected brackets from experts across the country. The Mountaineers appear on 49 of the 80 brackets weighed by Bracket Matrix, and experts such as ESPN’s Joe Lunardi currently project them as one of the last four teams in the field of 68 heading into this weekend.
Just like Texas A&M felt like it needed to beat Auburn to strengthen its case, West Virginia will be in a similar boat this week.
“This is kind of a similar game,” Pearl said. “West Virginia’s going to have a lot of opportunities in their league, as will we, to be able to get some resume wins and be able to get in the tournament, but you still got to get them, and you got to get them when they’re on the schedule. (Wednesday) night was one on the schedule, a potential to get one against the field, and we didn’t get it. So, our guys — I think understanding the importance of it, and we put ourselves in position, which is all you can ask for at this time of the year. Now, can we take advantage of the position we put ourselves in?”
That’s the question facing Auburn as it heads to WVU Coliseum for what will be the most hostile environment it has faced yet this season. The Tigers will see if they can answer it like they did following their loss at Georgia earlier this month.
“Sometimes you need a loss to humble you, get over the hump,” Jasper said. “We need a loss to get over the hump and regroup. When you get hot, it’s kind of hard to stay level. Hats off to the Texas A&M coach, he coached a great game, had a great scouting report. We’ll bounce back at West Virginia, for sure.”
Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.
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