AUBURN, Ala. – Coming off three straight losses, Auburn is in need of a win. The good news is that after four of the team's first six SEC games were on the road, the next three games will all be at Auburn Arena where the Tigers are 24-2 over the past two seasons.
"I feel like coming back home allows us to regroup," senior Horace Spencer said. "It allows us focus on the important things like playing good defense and playing together as a team, learning from past experiences and not trying to repeat what we have done in the past with the two losses on the road.
"We just need to come in here and take care of business."
The slow start to conference play is also not the end of the world for this Auburn team. Sure, the Tigers fell out of the top 25 in this week's AP poll. But if they can string together a couple wins, they're right back in it, and there's still plenty of time to enhance their résumé before March.
The key will be getting that confidence back that Auburn had early in the year.
"The locker room right now is really good," Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said. "This is obviously a pivotal week for us. Step back, if you will – and I told the team this – we're 13-6, ranked 26th in the country and our NET is 25. There are a lot of teams in the country that would trade places with us right now."
The three-game home stand begins with Missouri on Wednesday night. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CT from Auburn Arena. Rod Bramblett and Sonny Smith will have the radio call on 93.9 Tiger FM, online at AuburnTigers.com and on the TuneIn app. The game will also be televised on SEC Network with Mike Morgan and Barry Booker on the call.
Player to Watch: Jared Harper
Junior point guard Jared Harper has been the orchestrator on offense for the Tigers. His 6.6 assists per game leads the SEC and is 11th nationally. The Georgia native has recorded at least five assists in 16 of Auburn's 19 games this season, including three with 10-plus dimes. Harper has 405 assists in his career, good for ninth on the program's all-time list.
Inside the Series: Missouri
Auburn is looking to tie its all-time series with Missouri as it enters tonight's game trailing, 5-4. All nine previous meetings between the two teams have come since Missouri joined the SEC for the 2012-13 season. Auburn has won three of the last four games, including a 91-73 victory in Columbia last year.
Auburn is 2-1 in games played at Auburn Arena having won the last two.
Climbing the record books
Senior Bryce Brown scored a team-high 18 points in Auburn's loss to Mississippi State on Saturday and made two of his four 3-point attempts. With the two made 3s, Brown broke a tie with Vanderbilt's John Jenkins for seventh in SEC history. Brown, who now has 308 career 3-pointers made, is fifth among all active Division I players in that category.
The senior became Auburn's all-time career 3-point king earlier this season at the Maui Invitational, passing the old mark of 262 3-pointers set by Wesley Person.
Home-court advantage
Though Auburn had its 12-game home winning streak snapped against Kentucky in its last home game, the Tigers are 24-2 at home since the beginning of the 2017-18 season. That record includes a 13-game winning streak at Auburn Arena that began with an 89-78 victory over Missouri in the last home game of 2016-17 and ended with Auburn's only home loss last season, an 81-80 defeat to Texas A&M.
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @greg_ostendorf
Home remedy: Auburn hoping to 'regroup' against Missouri
