SEC ready: No. 11 Auburn opens league play at Ole Miss

AUBURN, Ala. – A year ago, Auburn finished up the non-conference slate at 12-1 before kicking off SEC play on the road at Tennessee. The Tigers weren't ranked yet. Nobody really knew how good they were, and very few would have predicted them to win the conference.
 
This year? Auburn went 11-2 in its non-conference games and will once again open league play on the road against a better-than-advertised Ole Miss team on Wednesday.
 
"I look at this as a big opportunity," Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said. "I honestly look at this like the Tennessee game a year ago. Where was Tennessee a year ago? About in the same spot Ole Miss is. They might've been a little higher ranked because they had a couple more marquee non-conference wins. But they were picked 13th. That's where Ole Miss is picked. And then they evolved. I kind of look at them very similarly."
 
This is a different Auburn team, though. For starters, this team is ranked No. 11 nationally whereas the Tigers weren't ranked heading into the SEC opener last year. There's also different personnel with the additions of Austin Wiley, Samir Doughty, J'Von McCormick and Danjel Purifoy.
 
And yet, ranking aside, there's still this sense that people are sleeping on the Tigers.
 
"Nobody nationally is talking about us," Pearl said. "We haven't given them anything to really talk about us, but they're not. They probably have some expectation. If we win, they'll say we're supposed to win. If we don't, then it's same old situation at Auburn. We're trying to change that perspective, but we've got to do that by winning and by playing well."
 
"Last year, we felt like we were slept on," added point guard Jared Harper. "I still feel like we're being slept on as individual players and as a team, so we're kind of using that as our fire going into SEC play."
 
Wednesday's game is scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m. CT from The Pavilion in Oxford. 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 ESPN2 with Karl Ravech and Seth Greenberg on the call.
 
Player to watch: Bryce Brown
 
In two games against Ole Miss last season, senior guard Bryce Brown scorched the nets en route to a pair of Auburn victories. The Georgia native averaged 18.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game in those contests. He's also just six 3-pointers away from cracking the top 10 all-time by any player in SEC history with 282 makes.
 
Inside the series: Ole Miss
 
This is the 136th meeting between Auburn and Ole Miss with Auburn holding a 75-60 series lead all-time. The Tigers swept the season series last year. Prior to that, Ole Miss had won 10 straight over Auburn. But not only did Auburn snap the Rebels' 10-game winning streak in the series last year, their win on the road last season ended a seven-game skid in Oxford. 
 
Kicking off league play
 
Auburn is 38-47 (.447) in SEC openers since the league's first season in 1932-33, including a 2-2 mark under head coach Bruce Pearl. With a win against Ole Miss on Wednesday, the Tigers can win back-to-back SEC openers for the first time since they beat Tennessee and Georgia in 1999 and 2000.  
 
Of note, Auburn's next SEC win will be its 600th SEC win in program history.
 
Trending up
 
Auburn is one of just 13 teams in the country to have improved its win totals in conference play each of the last four seasons and one of only two Power 5 programs to accomplish the feat. The Tigers won four SEC games in 2015, five in 2016, seven in 2017 and 13 in 2018 to become the league champions.  
 
Long layoff
 
With no game over the weekend, it's been 11 days since Auburn last played and beat North Florida 95-49 on Dec. 29. That's the longest layoff for the Tigers since an 11-day layoff between the Ohio State game (Dec. 8) and the Clemson game (Dec. 19) in 2013.
 
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @greg_ostendorf