Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl says Tigers are 'still in control of our own destiny'

AUBURN — Auburn basketball began the season 16-3 and opened play against SEC competition with a 6-1 start.

Since then, the Tigers have dropped seven of their last 10 games, making their NCAA Tournament resume a bit more questionable. The NET rankings still have Auburn at No. 36 and KenPom has the Tigers at No. 29. That's due to Auburn (19-10, 9-7 SEC), despite struggling with some of the better teams on its schedule, largely beating opponents it was favored against.

The Tigers are 2-8 in Quadrant 1 games this season and 17-2 in all other contests.

"We really want to take advantage of the body of our work. ... You just would hate to see it go away at the end just because the schedule was so overwhelming and we weren't up to the task," coach Bruce Pearl said Tuesday.

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The going won't get easier over Auburn's last two games, either. The Tigers go on the road to take on No. 2 Alabama (25-4, 15-1) in Coleman Coliseum on Wednesday (6 p.m. CT, ESPN2) before closing the season at home in Neville Arena against No. 14 Tennessee (21-8, 10-6) on Saturday.

But matchups with the Crimson Tide and the Vols present an opportunity to cement Auburn's hopes of reaching March Madness, something that Pearl has been candid with his team about. He went over the scenarios with his players of what winning two more games, losing two more games or splitting the meetings would mean for Auburn's future.

"I've been in situations in other years where there's nothing left on the schedule to really get you over the hump, that really can get you in," Pearl said. "And then you have to hope that somebody else loses. Well, we don't have that situation. We are still in control of our own destiny."

The Tigers still have the SEC Tournament to play, too, but Pearl doesn't want to have to rely on a win there to get his team into the national tournament.

"We have an idea of who we could play in the first game (of the SEC Tournament), one way or the other," Pearl said. "Typically, the first game, it's not going to be an opponent that could put you in. But it's definitely an opponent that could put you out. So, we have a chance to play two opponents that could get us in, right here, right now."

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on Twitter @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn basketball's Bruce Pearl says Tigers still control own destiny