3 takeaways from No. 13 Auburn’s 92-78 win over Georgia in regular season finale
On Senior Day at Neville Arena, No. 13 Auburn closed the regular season with a 92-78 win over Georgia. Head coach Bruce Pearl’s team finishes the regular season with a 24-7 overall record and a 13-5 record within the SEC.
Oh, and a student won a car.
And with that, welcome to postseason play. It’s the best weeks of the year in the best sports month of the year. Get your brackets ready.
And with just over a week before Selection Sunday, here are three takeaways from Auburn’s final home game.
Auburn will be the No. 4 seed in the SEC Tournament
Auburn’s win ensures it will get the fourth double-bye for next week’s SEC Tournament in Nashville and the all-important double-bye to Friday’s quarterfinal round.
South Carolina got the No. 5 seed and on Thursday it will play the winner of Arkansas and Vanderbilt. The winner of that will then go on to face Auburn.
Tennessee gets the top seed, Kentucky the No. 2 seed and Alabama the No. 3 seed.
Auburn’s first game in Nashville is slated for 2:30 p.m. Friday, which is of course subject to change depending on the timing of the first game of the day which begins on the same floor at noon.
Denver Jones continues to emerge
Denver Jones has not taken time to show out as one of Auburn’s best defense players. But it’s taken a little longer for the offense to follow him from FIU in his transfer to Auburn. He scored more than 20 points per game last season with FIU, and came to Auburn to take on a smaller role.
But as this season has worn on, Jones has emerged as the consistent 3-point shooter Auburn has lacked at points this season.
And in the last game, Jones finished with a season-high 21 points on 7-10 shooting including 7-9 on 3s.
Since Auburn’s game against Kentucky, Jones has now made 16 of his last 28 3-pointers. That’s just over 57%.
Bruce Pearl continues to set Auburn milestones
As Auburn continues to sit in a golden age of basketball under Bruce Pearl, it hit a milestone today that it’s now done only eight times ever: win 24 games or more in a season.
Pear continues to close in on Cliff Ellis for the second most wins ever at Auburn, now within 10 games. It won’t happen this season, but Pearl should take another step up the ladder this fall.
Pearl now has 197 wins at Auburn and is closing in on Joel Eaves 213 wins, the winningest coach in Auburn history.
Matt Cohen covers sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]