It took an extra day to get there this year, but the calendars finally turned over to the month of March on Friday.

And with March comes the need to tell “March stories,” Auburn head basketball coach Bruce Pearl says.

“Before the Georgia game we told the greatest March story Auburn basketball’s ever had — our 2019 Final Four run,” Pearl said Tuesday.. “What happened to that team?”

Pearl went on to talk about Auburn’s 2019 team playing hard and priding itself on good defense.

“Not quite as good as this team’s played,” Pearl said of the Tigers’ defense in 2019. “But pretty good.”

Then Pearl paused before identifying the biggest difference — the one that got Auburn over the hump five years ago.

“We started to get hot from 3,” Pearl said.

Auburn won its last four regular-season games, tore its way through the SEC tournament with another four wins and then tallied four more wins in the NCAA Tournament to find itself playing in the program’s first Final Four.

“And if you look at the 3-point shooting, it was a big factor,” Pearl said of Auburn’s 12-game win streak in 2019.

The Tigers logged 144 3-pointers through the course of the 12-game tear, good for an average of 12 makes per game.

Now as this year’s Auburn team enters March, Pearl believes a similar uptick in the Tigers’ shooting from beyond the arc could make the difference once again.

And immediately after Pearl told the story of how 3-point shooting helped Auburn in 2019, this year’s team of Tigers applied it in their 97-76 road win at Georgia.

Against the Bulldogs, the Tigers logged 14 made 3-pointers — tying their season-high.

Leading the shooting charge in Athens that evening was freshman Aden Holloway, who appeared to finally work his way out of his shooting slump with a 5-for-8 performance from downtown.

“We started Aden Holloway, just to see if we could kinda get him going,” Pearl said of Holloway returning to the starting lineup against Georgia. “If we can get him to be in a situation where he’s feeling better about himself, that’s a real positive thing.”

It all comes back to Pearl’s hope that Auburn hits a 3-point shooting stride down the stretch of this season.

“I’ve always been a guy who knew the 3-point shot was worth one more point than the 2-point shot. Not everybody’s got that figured out. I figured that out a long time ago,” Pearl joked Tuesday.

In Auburn’s loss to Tennessee Wednesday night, the Tigers took a step back from their hot performance against the Bulldogs as they made nine shots from beyond the arc.

However, while obviously less than 14, Auburn’s nine makes against Tennessee meant the Tigers still shot the ball better than they had been on the season as they average eight made 3-pointers per game.

Now coming down the homestretch as Auburn has just three regular season games left before the postseason gets underway, Pearl is hoping this year’s team can emulate the shooting success the Tigers during their 2019 tournament run.

In Pearl’s eyes, it’s a must.

“That’s what has to happen,” Pearl said.