The No. 12 (No. 4 seed) Auburn Tigers picked up a 73-66 win over the No. 9 seed Mississippi State Bulldogs to punch their ticket to the SEC Tournament Championship game.
What did Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl have to say after the game?
"I'll start off by congratulating Mississippi State on a great regular season and a great post-season run," Pearl said. "To just imagine that that team has as many quad one wins as they already have."
"They've beaten the best teams in our conference. Close to Kentucky. They beat Tennessee twice. They beat us. They've beaten Florida. Chris Jans is a great professional. His teams play so hard, so physical, so tough. He's a good dude."
Pearl talked about the impact of his team's depth in this game.
"We're a program that's committed to playing 10 guys double-digit minutes," Pearl said. "We're a program committed to playing our stars sometimes under 30 so that we can be fresh in March and be fresh in the end of the season, at the end of games or the end of halves to be able to make runs."
Before the tournament, Pearl said that the toughest game would be the first game. He revisited that statement.
"I'm laughing because I was obviously wrong," Pearl said. "The toughest game wasn't the first game (laughter). That doesn't have to do with our opponent. We played really well against South Carolina."
Auburn will take on the winner of the game between the No. 6 seed Florida Gators and No. 7 seed Texas A&M Aggies at 12 p.m. CT tomorrow. The television broadcast can be found on ESPN and the Auburn Sports Network broadcast can be streamed anywhere on the Auburn Athletics app.
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