AUBURN, Ala. – Three weeks ago, Auburn went to Georgia and won 95-77. Was Sharife Cooper’s second game, his first victory as Auburn Tiger. It was the team’s first SEC victory. And it was perhaps the best they have played in the entire season.
On Tuesday night, the Tigers will host the same team from Georgia at Auburn Arena. But winning a good team twice in the same season is never easy, and Bulldogs are not the same team, either. They have won three of their last five games since playing at Auburn.
“This is an improved Georgia team”, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “It is difficult to beat a good team twice. Yes. They are probably just excited that the score is 0-0 because we have moved away from them a bit. (I will) remind my boys that a three-point game with about of three minutes left for the first half. And when they started with a 7-0 run to start the second half, we were only four points clear at the time. “
Historically, a season sweep on the Auburn-Georgia series has been rare for both sides. The Tigers did this in 2018 and 2019 under Pearl, but in the 30 seasons prior to Pearl’s arrival in 2014, Auburn had swept Georgia only once in 1986.
The rivalry itself has been as competitive as you can get in hardwood. The two sides have met 192 times, and Auburn holds a slight 97-95 lead at all times.
It is an important series for Auburn as well. Peach State has become a key recruiting battleground for Pearl and her team, with almost half of Auburn’s stock market players this season having played high school basketball in Georgia, including three of the team’s five starters with Cooper, JT Thor and Jaylin Williams.
Recent Auburn students from the state of Georgia include Isaac Okoro, Chuma Okeke, Bryce Brown and Jared Harper – all of them in the NBA or the G-League.
“Our boys from Georgia came here, were successful, won championships, graduated, passed to professionals,” said Pearl. “Georgia has been good for us and I think that in many ways we have been good for Georgia.”
The last episode of the series, Tuesday night, is scheduled to start at 6 pm CT from Auburn Arena. Andy Burcham and Sonny Smith will have the radio call at 93.9 Tiger FM, online at AuburnTigers.com and the TuneIn app. The game will also be broadcast on the SEC Network with Tom Hart and Jon Sundvold on the conference call.
“Stretch” has been a threat in defense and glass, while playing a more prominent role for Tigers. Akingbola is in 10th place in the SEC, with 1.3 blocks per game and has blocked several shots five times this season. The Ogun native, from Nigeria, also managed several rebounds in seven consecutive games, averaging 3.1 bags per contest in that period.
This will be the 193rd meeting of all time between Auburn and Georgia. Bulldogs are the most common opponent in Auburn’s 114-year basketball history. Tigers have a slight advantage in the 97-95 series.
When the two sides clashed on January 13, Auburn led from start to finish towards a 95-77 victory. Tigers’ 95 points were the most in a SEC game since defeating LSU, 98-75, in Baton Rouge in 2017. It was the most points Auburn scored against Georgia since a 95-91 victory (4OT ) in 1979 in the SEC tournament.
The Tigers also blocked 14 shots in the first clash with Georgia, setting a program record for most blockades in a SEC road game. The 14 blocks are the best of any team in the country this season, a mark that was later tied by Auburn last week against Missouri.
Auburn has a 62-24 lead in games played at The Plains. The Tigers have seven of the last nine duels inside the Auburn Arena, including three in a row.
In terms of experience, the 2020-21 Auburn Tigers are the youngest team to occupy the position of coach Bruce Pearlcareer of. The team has an average of 0.75 years of experience, which positions it as the youngest team in the country to play a match this season.
Auburn has 32 freshman-matched matches this season, which is fifth in the country behind only Kentucky (45), Kansas State (39), North Carolina (35) and Washington State (34), and ahead of Duke (31) ). Three of the team’s top five scorers are freshmen with Sharife Cooper (21.3), Justin Powell (11.7) and JT Thor (9.3), although Powell remains out of the day due to injury.
When Auburn and Georgia played earlier this season, Sharife Cooper ended with 28 points and 12 assists – becoming Auburn’s first double-double points assist since Jared Harper did this on December 22, 2018. His 12 assists were the second most in a freshman game in this season and tied for more by a player in a SEC game.
Cooper, who leads the SEC with 8.1 assists per game, recorded the most double-double points-assists with 16 points and 12 assists in South Carolina. He is the only player in the country this season with multiple 15-point games, 12 assists and five rebounds.