Projection and game notes: No. 2 Auburn at South Carolina

No. 2 Auburn (14-1, 2-0 SEC) travels to South Carolina (10-5, 0-2 SEC) for an early Saturday tilt at noon (CT) / 1 p.m. (ET) in Columbia, S.C. It’s back-to-back road contests for the Tigers as they are coming off an 87-82 road victory at Texas on Tuesday night in Austin, Texas. Last season, Auburn beat a Top-15 South Carolina team by 40 points inside Neville Arena, and then beat the Gamecocks again by 31 points during the first round of the SEC Tournament in Nashville. Will it be more of the same this time around? Bruce Pearl and Co. are big favorites, and last year Pearl hinted that schematically, the Tigers simply had some favorable matchups that South Carolina struggled to deal with. We'll see if another season changes any of that, as Auburn looks to ascend to No. 1 in the human polls after Tennessee's loss on Tuesday night.