Auburn just beat the SEC's best. Now it's got the "most dangerous."
Texas might be 3-4 in the league, but its best is extremely strong. Let's break down what Auburn will be facing Wednesday at Neville.
AUBURN — Steven Pearl isn’t resting easily after Auburn’s historic win at Florida.
In fact, the first-year head coach has had a hard time sleeping these last few days.
Even though Auburn just got arguably the best possible result left on the regular season schedule — a 9-point road victory at the projected SEC champions — it had to quickly move on to the Texas team it will host Wednesday night at Neville Arena.
“While I said Florida was the best team in our league, this is the most dangerous team in our league,” Pearl said Tuesday. “And it's not even close, in my opinion. … It's been keeping me up at night.”
Texas, now led by former Arizona and Xavier head coach Sean Miller, is a prime example of how there can be more than what meets the eye with certain teams.
The Longhorns might be 12-8 overall and 3-4 in the conference. But all three of their SEC wins are extremely high-quality: a road victory at Alabama, a home one over then-undefeated Vanderbilt and a second-half comeback over Georgia last Saturday that turned into a 20-point rout in a hurry.
No SEC team has beaten more Top 25 teams than Texas, which already has four. Texas is just outside of the top 10 nationally in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency rating. The Longhorns have four different players average 13 or more points per game.
“They're probably the most talented team, from a guard standpoint, that we've played to this point — just as far as all the different things those guys are capable of doing,” Pearl said. “Gonna have our hands full. We're gonna really have to sit down and guard our yard and not require a ton of help. One of the best 1-on-1 teams in the country.”
Auburn has won its last three games and four of its last five. According to T-Rank, the Tigers are playing like the No. 12 team in the nation since Christmas. They should have plenty of confidence coming off of that historic result in Gainesville.
But the talent of Texas will be a swift reminder that Auburn can’t feel like it’s arrived. There’s still a lot of basketball to be played in the sport’s most balanced conference.
“If we let this thing get to our heads and we don't get ready for Texas…” Pearl said. “We've got to keep that chip on our shoulder. We've got to have our backs against the wall, because that's the only way that we can play well.
“That's what we have to do in order to beat this team, because they're so damn talented and they're the most dangerous team in our league. We've got to stay locked into what we've been doing and continue to play hungry.”
Auburn shooting guard Kevin Overton said Tuesday that he felt like the biggest difference for an Auburn team that previously struggled on defense but has won three straight games by holding opponents to under 68 points has been the attention to detail in the scouting reports.
“I think we’ve, since our last loss, clamped down on the details, just in terms of individual players and just not doing extra,” Overton said. “I think we've got outside of ourselves in certain games of just not really believing what's really going on in the game with these players. I think just cracking down on the details.”
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the Texas team that will be coming to face Auburn on Wednesday night.
It might not be quite as advanced as the scouting report Auburn has on Texas. But here are the major details you need to know about the Longhorns ahead of this big return home for the Tigers.
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