GAME GLANCE: Bruce Pearl brings Auburn to Lexington
Auburn (11-5) travels to Lexington for a Saturday afternoon game against No. 6 Kentucky.
Auburn at Kentucky, Jan. 14, 4 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN
RADIO: UK Sports Network
SERIES HISTORY: UK leads 91-18
LAST MEETING: Auburn won 75-70 (Jan. 16, 2016 at Auburn)
Auburn's Statistical Leaders
Mustapha Heron - 16.2 PPG (.429 FG/.414 3-pt/.790 FT), 6.4 RPG
Daniel Purifoy - 13.7 PPG (.403/.391/.873), 5.8 RPG, 2.2 APG, 1.7 SPG
Jared Harper - 13.5 PPG (.411/.345/.702), 2.4 RPG, 3.4 APG, 27 steals
T.J. Dunans - 7.3 PPG (.378/.212/.520), 3.5 RPG, 2.5 APG, 0.9 BPG
Austin Wiley - 7.3 PPG (.576/.000/.464), 4.1 RPG
Bryce Brown - 6.2 PPG (.293/.288/.600)
Ronnie Johnson - 5.8 PPG (.412/.280/.800), 1.5 RPG, 2 APG
Horace Spencer - 5.1 PPG (.583/.000/.455), 3.7 RPG
Storylines
Auburn has been one of the SEC's better road teams so far in the 2016-17 season, winning three of their four games played on an opponent's home court. The Tigers have won at Oklahoma (74-70), at UCONN (70-67 in OT) and most recently at Missouri (77-72). Their lone road loss came at Vanderbilt (80-61) on January 4th.
The Tigers enter Saturday's game having lost three of their last four contests. After winning four games in a row from mid-to-late December the Tigers have been on a slide, only defeating Missouri and losing to Georgia, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss. They are 1-3 in SEC play.
The biggest crowd Auburn has played in front of this season was just more than 12,000, in that road game against UCONN. On Saturday they will play in front of a Rupp Arena crowd that should be close to twice that number.
Auburn has 11 players who average 11 minutes or more per game. While Mustapha Heron is the Tigers' leading scorer (16.2 PPG) by a good margin, just three Auburn players average eight or more points per game.
Auburn is outrebounded by an average of 2.8 boards per game.
The Tigers are scoring 79.2 points per game. They shoot only .423 from the field collectively but hold opponents to .411 from the floor and .316 from deep. They have also doubled their opponents in blocked shots, have 40-percent more steals than their opponents and force 16.5 turnovers per game.
In last year's game between Auburn and No. 14 Kentucky (75-70 Auburn win), Jamal Murray and Tyler Ulis combined for 37 points to lead the Cats in scoring. For Auburn, Kareem Canty scored 26 points and Tyler Harris scored 21 to help the Tigers pull the upset. Neither player is with this year's team.
Heron, a 6-foot-5 left-handed freshman guard, is the first five-star player signed by Auburn in its basketball program's history. He had 16 points and nine rebounds in Auburn's last game against Vanderbilt, their first SEC win of the 2016-17 season.
This week Bruce Pearl told the media that he's disappointed in Auburn's start to SEC play but defiantly added that the Tigers are good enough to beat any team that they play on the road.
Pearl is 5-11 against Kentucky (1-2 at Auburn, 4-9 at Tennessee). The only Pearl-coached team to win in Lexington was his very first Tennessee squad in 2006.
Isaiah Briscoe scored 23 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out five assists in Kentucky's last game, an 87-81 win on the road against Vanderbilt. De'Aaron Fox chipped in with 22 points and five boards.
After averaging 31 points per game during a four-game stretch against North Carolina, Louisville, Ole Miss and Texas A&M, freshman guard Malik Monk has averaged 15 points while shooting just 40-percent from the field over the Cats' last two wins, against Arkansas and Vanderbilt.