At his Thursday meeting with the media, Jeff Lebo said he was preparing his team as if Alabama point guard Ronald Steele would be active for the first matchup between the inter-state rivals.

Somewhere in between Thursday afternoon and today’s 1 p.m. tip at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum, Lebo had to rewrite his gameplan for the Tide, who will be without their star point guard for an unknown amount of time.

“He’s the leader of their team,” Lebo said. “He’s like the rock. I think when you have him, the rest of their guys feel a lot more comfortable when he’s out on the floor.”

That comfort level will be tested, as Steele, who has sat out the last week of practice and missed Wednesday’s loss at Mississippi State, is out “indefinitely” with plantar fasciitis.

According to the Mayo Clinic, plantar fasciitis affects the tissue along the bottom of the foot that connects to the heal bone and toes. It causes a stabbing or burning pain, but can be overcome without surgery.

“His progress will continue to be evaluated on a daily basis,” Alabama coach Mark Gottfried told the Birmingham News, “but I anticipate him being out multiple games.”

A couple things are for certain. Steele will be out today, but Lebo won’t be ready to immediately chalk up Auburn’s first SEC win of the season because of his absence.

“Obviously not having him will make them a little bit of a different team,” Lebo said. “But even in (Wednesday’s) game, (Mikhail) Torrance comes off the bench and really took the opportunity. When his name was called, he played very, very well.”

Torrance, a junior from Eight Mile, scored 20 points in the Tide’s 83-74 loss Wednesday at Mississippi State.

“There’s no question he deserves an opportunity to play,” Gottfried said. “He filled in (Wednesday) and did a terrific job. We need to find some more opportunities for him.”

Today’s138th matchup between the archrivals will provide an opportunity for Auburn to snap out of a wretched shooting slump from both the foul line and beyond the 3-point arc.

The Tigers rank 336th out of 343 Division I teams with a 59.2 percent success rate from the free-throw line. Against Florida on Wednesday, Auburn hit just 10 of its 21 attempts, including a number of misses on the front end of 1-and-1’s.

“Of our losses, we win probably four of them if we shoot average from the line,” Lebo said. “It’s just disheartening. You get there with nobody defending you, and you can’t shoot average from the free-throw line.”

Discarding Auburn’s 17-of-22 performance at the line in its loss to No. 15 Xavier, the Tigers have shot 50 percent (49-for-98) from the foul line in their other five losses.

Auburn hasn’t had as tough of problems behind the 3-point line, but it has definitely presented some issues in its first two conference losses. The Tigers have shot just 23 percent from 3-point range in their first two SEC games, but haven’t slowed their attempts. Auburn leads the conference with 369 3-point attempts.

“We’ve been focusing on defense, trying not to let our opponent score as much, and it kind of took away from our offense,” guard Quantez Robertson said. “But once we get more than one or two people scoring then our offensive troubles will go away.”

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