The fifth-ranked Tennessee Volunteers lost to an unranked Mississippi State in Starkville Wednesday night, just four days after the Vols beat up on the Ole Miss Rebels in a 26-point win.

That same Ole Miss team hosted Florida Wednesday night and beat the Gators by 18.

“Just after two games, you can see how wild this race is going to be and how challenging it’s going to be to survive,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said, remarking on the SEC’s basketball landscape. “It’s going to be a lot of ups and downs.”

Fortunately for Pearl and the Tigers, all they’ve experienced to this point are the ups — a testament considering Auburn has played both Arkansas and Texas A&M, two teams that found themselves inside the top three of the SEC preseason poll.

In each of those games, the Tigers won by double digits as they posted a 32-point win over the Razorbacks and an 11-point win over the Aggies.

The next checkpoint in Auburn’s leg of the wild race comes Saturday evening as the Tigers host LSU, which was picked to finished 13th — or second last — in the conference’s preseason rankings.

“We start off the season playing two teams ranked in the preseason top five,” Pearl said. “And now you’ve got LSU coming in — who wasn’t in anyone’s top five — but they’re undefeated in league play.”

Like Auburn, LSU also knocked off Texas A&M.

LSU beat Texas A&M by 15 points in both team’s SEC opener on Jan. 6. It was a game that saw the Aggies outrebound the Bayou Bengals by six.

Meanwhile, Texas A&M outrebounded Auburn by 10 Wednesday night.

“It’s hard to believe, but they’re more athletic than even Texas A&M,” Pearl said, adding that LSU is first in the SEC in forcing turnovers with an average of more than 15 per game.

And in Pearl’s eyes, it’s the eligibility of senior guard Jalen Cook that “completely changes their roster.”

After starting his college career at LSU during the 2020-21 season, Cook decided to transfer to Tulane, where he spent two seasons. Last season, Cook led the Green Wave with an average of 19.9 points per game, while averaging 34.5 minutes per game.

After standing out at Tulane last season, Cook elected to transfer a second time and ultimately landed where he started: Baton Rouge.

Pearl admitted Thursday that his interest was piqued by Cook when he was looking to transfer the first go ‘round. However, come Cook’s second transfer, Pearl and the Tigers didn’t give him a glance.

“He would’ve been a two-time transfer, and we were told by our compliance office — who had been told by the NCAA — that two-time transfers would not be eligible,” Pearl said Thursday as he expressed his frustration with the passing of recent legislation which allows two-time transfers to play after all.

Pearl added that he wasn’t against the rule change as much as he was the rule change coming midway through the season.

Since the rule change, Cook has appeared in five games for LSU and is averaging 16.8 points per game after a 28-point effort against Vanderbilt.

Pearl also mentioned grad transfer Jordan Wright as a player LSU is reaping the benefits from as Wright is averaging 15 points and 5.1 rebounds per game.

Before transferring to LSU in the offseason and returning to his home state of Louisiana, Wright spent his first four seasons of college play at Vanderbilt.

“He goes back home to Louisiana, which is pretty cool that he has that Vanderbilt degree in hand and has a really nice career there and then he has a chance to go home to LSU,” Pearl said of Wright. “And he’s playing the best basketball of his career right now.”

All of that is said to bring home a point Pearl made just before Auburn opened SEC play.

Sure, the LSU Tigers might’ve been picked to finish second-from-the-bottom of the conference during the preseason, but just like Auburn, they’re coming into Saturday night’s game undefeated in SEC play.

“If Joe Lunardi is right and there’s potentially nine (SEC) teams going into the NCAA tournament, virtually every night it’s a pick ‘em,” Pearl said as he previewed Auburn’s visit to Arkansas on Jan. 4.

Auburn and LSU will tipoff from 5 p.m. on Saturday from Auburn’s Neville Arena. The game will be televised on the SEC Network.