ESPN Analytics projects winner of Auburn/Mississippi State SEC Tournament first-round matchup
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
The second of four SEC Tournament first-round matchups on Wednesday features a team fighting to stay on the NCAA Tournament bubble and another looking to play spoiler.
Twelfth-seeded Auburn and 13th-seeded Mississippi State are set to tip off at 3 p.m. ET at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, right after Kentucky vs. LSU.
Auburn has been front and center in the college basketball headlines over the past few weeks. Steven Pearl, in his first season since taking over for his father, Bruce, as Tigers head coach, has a long way to go to get this team back to what it was in recent years. They enter Wednesday having lost eight of their last 10 — including a 91-85 defeat in Starkville on Feb. 18 — and with a razor-thin margin for error. According to Joe Lunardi’s bracketology from Monday night, Auburn is projected as the last team in the NCAA Tournament.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs would love nothing more than to repeat what they did three weeks ago while likely putting an end to the Tigers’ fading NCAA hopes. In that previously mentioned regular-season meeting, Josh Hubbard had a show-stopping 46 points while making a school-record 10 three-pointers. Despite the final score, Mississippi State coughed up an 18-point second-half lead and trailed by seven with under four minutes to play before sneaking away with the win.
ESPN Analytics has this one going the way of Auburn, though. The Tigers sit at 76.5% on the matchup predictor. Here’s what it looks like on Kalshi as it is taking action on the first-round matchup:
Fifth-seeded Tennessee awaits the winner of this game. The Volunteers beat both Auburn and Mississippi State in the regular season.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
