Aaron Estrada predicts what atmosphere will be like against Auburn

On Wednesday, Alabama and Auburn will square off for the second time this season. The Crimson Tide narrowly defeated Auburn in their first meeting at home. However, this time, Alabama has to march into enemy territory. Alabama guard Aaron Estrada is already speculating about the opposing crowd.

“I can imagine, it’s probably just as brutal as when they came here,” Estrada said after Alabama defeated Mississippi State on Saturday. “I haven’t played at Auburn yet so this is going to be my first time. I’m probably in for a surprise too.”

Neville Arena isn’t exactly a safe haven for visiting teams. The arena seats just over 9,000 fans, and rarely isn’t filled to the brim. Even fans in the “nose bleeds” are right on top of the action. The furthest seat in Neville Arena is just 43 feet away from the court.

Students are a lot closer. Auburn students have their own entrance, lobby and concessions area at the Arena to service 1,500 floor-level seats. The students don’t let the accommodations go to waste, raining down their voices on visiting teams every moment of the game.

They’ll have to be extra loud against Alabama. The Crimson Tide are rolling, currently on a four-game win streak. Most recently, Alabama dominated Mississippi State in a 99-67 blowout.

In the win, Alabama was firing on all cylinders. The team racked up 18 assists and had four players score double figures. Mark Sears led the way with 21 points while shooting 6-10 from the field. After the game, Alabama head coach Nate Oats praised his team.

“We’ve been asking our guys to come out and try to put 40 minutes of both sides of the ball together. That’s been the closest we’ve come,” Oats said. “That’s a tough team. Mississippi State, I think they’ve been out-rebounded twice all year, and that was one of them.

“We challenged our guys after the rebounding debacle at Georgia – and it was awful at Georgia – to bounce back. We did a great job.”

Auburn won’t be a pushover

Now, Alabama will look to keep its momentum rolling on the road. Nonetheless, Auburn won’t make it easy. The Tigers have won two in a row, most recently defeating Ole Miss 91-77. Head coach Bruce Pearl was happy after the victory, but he certainly isn’t satisfied yet.

“That’s the best win of the year for us,” Pearl said. “We talked about if we are going to think about competing for the conference championship, really, then we have to win one of these, like one that nobody else is going to win. I don’t know if anyone else is going to come in here and win. This was a separator for us.

“We took a step tonight,” Pearl said. “We have to take another step on Wednesday when we play the first place team, playing for first place on Wednesday in February.”

On Wednesday, Alabama and Auburn will go head-to-head at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2.