Following an overtime loss in heartbreaking fashion to SEC foe Georgia, Auburn looks to bounce back and earn its first conference victory of the season on Tuesday at home against Texas A&M.
Steven Pearl’s Tigers started the season strong but now find themselves 9-5 overall after dropping their last three of five contests. Although this record appears mediocre on paper, Auburn has faced many highly touted squads thus far, placing them second in the SEC regarding strength of schedule.
Unlike Auburn’s daunting schedule thus far, the Aggies have not been faced with many challenges in the first few months of the season as they are just 12th in strength of schedule for the conference. Despite not facing any ranked teams yet, A&M has performed well against their competition as they will enter Neville Arena with an 11-3 record and a four-game winning streak.
A noticeable struggle for both Auburn and A&M has been defense, specifically one-on-one. The Tigers are currently ranked 307th in the nation in points allowed per game with just over 78 points allowed on average while the Aggies allow 76.8 points on average, which leaves them 264th for the category. Saturday’s contest in Athens marked the fourth contest in which Pearl’s squad has allowed over 90 points which left the head coach irate on the sidelines.
“Our one-on-one defense is terrible,” Pearl stated. “We let guys drive right around us... But at some point, our guys have to have a level of pride that they are not going to let their guy just continuously line them up and drive right around them.”
While each team’s defense has performed poorly to start the year, the same disappointments have not translated on the other side of the ball as A&M ranks second in the SEC and fifth overall in points with 94.7 per game while Auburn has racked up 86.9 points on average which is good for 42nd in the country.
A large factor to these teams' successes offensively has been their star transfers. Senior forward, Keyshawn Hall spent his junior year at UCF and has been exceptional with the Tigers recording 20.1 points per game and 7.9 boards per game which is third and sixth in the SEC, respectively. Rasheen Agee transferred to College Station after spending his senior year at USC and will be the player for Auburn fans to watch Tuesday for the Aggies. Agee is averaging a double-double while scoring an even 13 points per game and leading the conference in rebounds with 10.7 which will make for numerous physical battles in the paint off against the Tigers, another strong rebounding squad.
Auburn has not fared well all time against the Aggies basketball program as the Tigers will enter this matchup with a 7-16 record against A&M going back to 1961 and have lost their last two of eight contests. If Pearl’s team is able to improve on their defensive efforts while continuing to dominate the stat sheet in rebounding, Auburn will have a great chance in front of their home crowd to secure their first conference victory.
Tip-off is set for Tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. CST inside Neville Arena and will be televised on SEC Network.
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Will is a sophomore majoring in journalism. He started with The Plainsman in the spring of 2025.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @willdembo
