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A juicy semifinal matchup is potentially on the horizon if both teams can avoid an upset in their first game at the SEC Tournament.
Arkansas, the event’s 4 seed, would meet regular-season champion Auburn at noon Saturday if it gets by either LSU, Missouri or Ole Miss in the quarterfinals and the Tigers also beat the Texas A&M/Florida winner.
It would be a rematch of the Razorbacks’ thrilling 80-76 overtime win at Bud Walton Arena back on Feb. 8, when Auburn was No. 1 and fans stormed the court afterward.
That’s a game the Tigers have apparently not forgotten. In an interview on the “Locked On Auburn” podcast, Auburn guard Zep Jasper said when head coach Bruce Pearl first saw the bracket, the first thing he said was “payback.”
“We see two teams on our side (of the bracket) that beat us and one of them is Arkansas,” Jasper said. “If we run into them, I feel like it’s going to be a different game.”
As podcast host Zac Blackerby pointed out, the Tigers could potentially have a shot to avenge all three of their conference losses. That would require Florida beating Texas A&M, Arkansas advancing to the semifinals and Tennessee reaching the championship game.
However, is seems as though all of Auburn’s attention is on Arkansas, which won 14 of its final 16 games of the regular season and enters the SEC Tournament ranked No. 15 in the AP Poll.
“We would love to get them back, especially Arkansas,” Jasper said. “Not really Florida, but Arkansas, we would love to get them back… That’s one for sure we would want to play. We just feel like we were disrespected. They feel like they got a win, they feel like they’re better than us right now.”
In fact, Jasper went so far as to make a prediction for that potential semifinal matchup with the Razorbacks.
“If we play against them, the intensity is going to be high, the energy is going to be flowing, because we feel like we got something to prove against them,” Jasper said. “We feel like we’re going to beat the crap out of them when we see them again because from that coaching staff, their players, their fans, we just didn’t tolerate the disrespect from their state.”
The source of the animosity is not exactly clear. It was an emotional game that featured 13 ties and 13 lead changes in the second half, with the margin staying within one possession for all but 33 seconds.
When the Razorbacks finally won in overtime, capped by a Davonte Davis dunk just after the buzzer in which he swung over Auburn’s Wendell Green.
As fans celebrated on the country following just the second win over an AP No. 1 team in school history, head coach Eric Musselman gave an emotional postgame interview on ESPN2 and mentioned Auburn players dancing on the Arkansas logo and midcourt during pregame warmups as a source of motivation.
Jasper — who missed the game because of an illness — did not go into specifics, but referred to “disrespect” toward Pearl on the internet.
“I didn’t get to go on the trip, but I just see all the type of stuff on the internet, this and that,” Jasper said. “I’m a firm believer in my coach. I’m a firm believer in what he do. For him to get disrespect, for him to be mad at what they did, I’m going to be mad, too. I would love to see Arkansas.”
A transfer from Charleston, Jasper started 29 games for the Tigers during the regular season and averaged 5.0 points and 2.2 assists.
