One week, two paths, same objective, different trajectories.

A week ago, Alabama and Auburn each had a shot at the SEC regular season title before Tennessee recalibrated things. It’s the Vols championship to lose now that it pulled the Yellowhammer State sweep Wednesday and Saturday.

So now the two-game SEC tournament bye is the matching objective for Alabama and Auburn teams coming from different directions.

First, Auburn (22-7, 10-5 SEC) arrives in the final two-game stretch on a positive note after beating up on Mississippi State, 78-63 on Saturday. It faces arguably the path of least resistance with a Tuesday trip to Missouri (0-16 in SEC play) before playing host to Georgia (5-11 SEC) on Saturday.

For the Tigers, it’ll be a mental test of holding serve and beating the most beatable and not relaxing before the postseason run. There’s no room for error if Auburn were to get one of the top four seeds for the SEC bracket so this is the perfect week to catch a tailwind for a team that’s had a rhythm for inconsistency since early February.

The 99-81 win over Alabama on Feb. 7 was the Tigers’ third straight victory. Since then, they’ve alternated wins and losses over a six-game stretch. The Florida and Kentucky losses were demoralizing while last Wednesday’s 92-84 final at Tennessee had more to build upon.

Quick aside: Tennessee is making a late push for an NCAA top seed with its sixth straight win Saturday night. In a season of widespread inconsistency, the Vols are currently the only SEC team with unchecked momentum entering the final sprint.

At 11-5 in the SEC, Auburn is tied with Kentucky for the No. 4 seed but the Wildcats have the tiebreaker over the Tigers. UK has a tougher road this week since it closes the season Saturday at the aforementioned white-hot Vols.

Alabama (20-9, 12-4 SEC) arrives at judgment week with the what-if feeling. It seemingly had Tennessee in real trouble Saturday night for the inside track on the SEC regular-season title. But after taking a seven-point second-half lead, it was the Crimson Tide offense that faltered in a deflating 81-74 loss in front of a turbo-charged Coleman Coliseum crowd.

Now it will need Tennessee to lose twice (at South Carolina, home vs. Kentucky) to have a shot at the top seed.

And it won’t be a cakewalk with a Tuesday trip to Gainesville against a Florida team that took the Tide to overtime in Tuscaloosa — the same team that humiliated Auburn on the same floor (81-65) back on Feb. 10. The Tide closes out with the most disappointing team in the league, Arkansas (14-15, 5-11).

“We’ll see how mature our guys are,” coach Nate Oats said Saturday night about the mental challenge of fighting on after losing its inside track for the top seed.

Alabama’s inconsistency is slightly different from Auburn’s.

If anything its defensive issues were incredibly consistent. The 117-95 loss at Kentucky was a rock bottom moment as it finished with a 146.1 defensive efficiency rating for that game, according to KenPom’s formula. That was nearly 20 points worse that the previous season low (128.3 in the 99-81 loss at Auburn).

Well, it was the Tide’s normally over-riding offense that faltered late against Tennessee. It had a more respectable 110.5 defensive efficiency rating against the Vols (better than five wins over Power 5 teams) but had its third-lowest offensive efficiency of the season (100.9). The hosts shot just 31% after halftime and made only 2 of 17 shots from behind the arc.

Another quick aside: It’s worth noting that these conversations about double-byes and top seeds were fantastical for both programs just a few years ago. Not long ago, it was a fight to avoid Wednesday night in Nashville so it’s important to remember how far these programs have progressed to have this current conversation.

Big picture, the differences between last year’s No. 1 NCAA tournament overall seed and this group are most glaring on the defensive end. That group had the length to discourage penetration for buckets at the rim. The unexpected departure of Charles Bediako left a defensive hole in the paint that became a liability in key moments this season.

A year ago, Alabama had the No. 3 defensive efficiency in KenPom’s ratings. After Saturday, it is right at No. 100. Where only nine games last year finished with defensive efficiency ratings over 100, only eight this year have fallen below 100.

Not idea, yet not completely disqualifying for a run at an SEC title just yet.

Crazy season.

Alabama and Auburn split their regular-season series, ran hot and cold in the weeks that followed and now find themselves in different fights to get to similar places.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.