Auburn takes on Texas A&M in its SEC home opener on Tuesday night. Head coach Steven Pearl knows the Aggies bring a lot to the table offensively.
The Auburn Tigers narrowly lost to the No. 22 Georgia Bulldogs on the road at Stegeman Coliseum on Saturday afternoon to open the SEC portion of their schedule, but they have a chance to right the ship against the Texas A&M Aggies at home on Tuesday night.
The Tigers will have their work cut out for them against the Aggies, particularly on the defensive end of the floor as Texas A&M can put points on the board in a wide variety of ways.
"Another late one, but obviously looking forward to being back in front of the Jungle," head coach Steven Pearl said. "We've got another tough opponent in Texas A&M coming in. Big win for them on Saturday night against LSU. (They're) really dynamic offensively, (they) score a lot of points. Really play at a fast tempo, really trying to speed you up defensively."
Pearl identified a similarity between Georgia and Texas A&M and described how Auburn can use what it saw on Saturday to its advantage.
"I'm glad we played Georgia before playing them because they're kind of similar to them in that regard," Pearl said. "They're going to press for 40 minutes. Texas A&M is a little more aggressive in their pressing though."
After not playing up to its standard defensively, Auburn has put a higher emphasis on defensive coaching ahead of the Texas A&M matchup.
"We had 23 really good defensive possessions against Georgia, the problem is we had 80 something possessions in the game so the other 60 possessions we weren't very good," Pearl said. "I broke it down into every possession and did individual sorters for every players to come in and watch film with a coach of what they didn't do well."
Tipoff between Auburn and Texas A&M is set for 8 p.m. CT and SEC Network will carry the broadcast.