Johni Broome and his teammates knew what awaited them in the back half of the SEC slate, so they wanted to be sure to “put on a show” as a precursor to that grueling stretch of games ahead.

So, Wednesday night against Georgia, Auburn did just that. The Tigers put together their best offensive game not just of the season, but their most efficient offensive effort in years while blowing out the Bulldogs, 94-73, at Neville Arena.

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Replicating that sort of efficiency in their next game will be no simple task, but at least one aspect of Auburn’s offensive masterpiece against Georgia could be key to Bruce Pearl’s team having its best chance at securing its biggest win of the season when it travels to Knoxville, Tenn., to take on No. 2 Tennessee and the nation’s top-rated defense Saturday at 1 p.m.

Along with a season high in points against Georgia, Auburn tied a season best with 22 assists while committing a season-low five turnovers in its midweek blowout on the Plains. Valuing possessions in that manner and taking care of the ball will be of the utmost importance against a Tennessee defense that has been downright dominant this season.

“Tennessee is the best defensive team in the country,” Pearl said. “They are – the numbers all speak to it as far as their field goal percentage defense, their 3-point percentage defense. They’re number two in the nation in scoring margin, plus-18.5, all games. They’re very, very deep. They’re very, very talented. They’re well-coached. They’re very physical.”

Tennessee ranks No. 1 in the nation in defensive efficiency, according to KenPom, limiting opponents to 85.5 points per 100 possessions, adjusted for tempo. The Vols also lead the nation in 3-point defense, holding teams to a meager 25.5 percent clip from beyond the arc, and they’re also tops in the country in field goal defense, with opponents shooting just 34.8 percent against them this year.

They’re also 10th in steal percentage (13.7 percent) and are forcing turnovers on 21.1 percent of opponents’ possessions, which is 17th in the nation and fourth-best among high-major programs. In all, Tennessee averages 16.4 takeaways per game.

“Tennessee will climb all in us and pressure and make it really hard for us to run our stuff,” Pearl said.

Auburn’s offense hasn’t been nearly as explosive as it was last season, when it had the luxury of Jabari Smith and Walker Kessler in the lineup, but the Tigers have been at their best this season when they’ve taken care of the ball, as Wednesday night showed. The good news for Auburn is that it largely has not been an aberration, particularly in SEC play, where some of its supporting cast has done well to avoid turnovers.

Pearl lauded both Allen Flanigan and K.D. Johnson for how well they’ve done in that regard since the start of conference play, and the two have overall played better of late. Flanigan is coming off his best game since his Achilles injury prior to his junior season, scoring 22 points against Georgia without committing a turnover. Johnson scored in double figures for the second straight game, finishing with 13 points while committing just one turnover.

More than just providing an added scoring punch to complement the consistent production of Wendell Green Jr., Johni Broome and Jaylin Williams, though, Flanigan is averaging just 1.4 turnovers per game in SEC play. Seven of those came in Auburn’s win against Mississippi State, an outlier certainly, as he has averaged just 0.8 turnovers in the Tigers’ other eight SEC contests. Johnson, meanwhile, is averaging just 0.78 turnovers per game in SEC action.

“If you had told me that, you know, at the start of the season in nine games K.D. slightly less than one, Al just like one — which means they’re really trying to take care of the ball, right?” Pearl said. “That just means they’re really trying to make, you know, better decisions about when they have advantage and disadvantage. It really means that they’re both trying to value possessions. And, you know, cutting down on our turnovers.”

Limiting turnovers, particularly in the backcourt against Santiago Vescovi and Zakai Ziegler, could loom large, especially considering how well Tennessee defends in the frontcourt with its length and physicality inside with the likes of Josiah-Jordan James, Julian Phillips and Olivier Nkamhoua.

“Their three, four and five are all enormous,” Pearl said. “And so that length and that physicality. You know, in watching Tennessee’s games, there’s just lots of contact, and more so than in most games. So, they typically let you play, they let them play, and they’re very, very physical, which – if they’re gonna let you play, it really can help your defense. They adopt, they’ve adopted, and they run a lot of the very same principles that we run, as far as how they guard man to man, they’re obviously better at it than we are.”

While optimizing possessions offensively will be key for Auburn’s chances at the road upset—and a big-time Quadrant 1 win to bolster the postseason resume—the Tigers will defensively need to get back to their old ways when it comes to defending the perimeter. Until recently, Auburn had the nation’s No. 2 3-point defense, but Pearl’s team has slipped somewhat over the last few games, dropping to sixth nationally in that regard (27.8 percent).

Texas A&M knocked down seven of its 19 attempts from deep in its win at Neville Arena last week, and then Auburn saw West Virginia go 9-of-20 from beyond the arc—many of them tough, contested makes—before Georgia drained 14-of-34 from 3-point range on Wednesday. The 14 made 3s by Georgia were a season-high allowed by Auburn.

If the Tigers can revert to their prior success defending the 3-point line, their chances of winning in Knoxville should skyrocket. For as good as Tennessee has been defensively, the Vols’ offense is capable of mucking it up from time to time, as has been the case in each of their two SEC losses. In Tennessee’s home loss to Kentucky, it went just 3-of-21 (14.3 percent) from beyond the arc. In Wednesday’s loss at Florida, Tennessee connected on just 5-of-25 (20 percent) attempts from deep.

Pearl paid close attention to what the Gators — led by first-year coach Todd Golden, a former Auburn assistant under Pearl — did to disrupt the Vols’ offense, but he didn’t want to tip his hand about what he learned. Regardless, it will be a challenge for Auburn, particularly on the road against one of the nation’s top programs.

In that challenge, though, lies opportunity.

“We all recognize that the back nine is, you know, three times as hard as the front nine,” Pearl said. “But still, to work as hard as we work to put ourselves in the position that we have put ourselves in is worth noting. This will be our second top-25 matchup of the year. Having beaten 13th-ranked Arkansas the first time we had a top-25 matchup. And this time it’ll be on the road in a place where Tennessee’s beaten people by 25 points a game…. This will be by far the tallest task we’ve faced.”

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.