Auburn heads into the SEC Tournament tonight knowing it needs to do something fairly special to make sure the NCAA Regional it is hosting doesn’t go on without the Tigers.

An up-and-down regular season left Auburn right about where it started the year. The Tigers are a game over .500, dead even in conference play, and with their postseason destination very much in question.

The Women’s NIT is a possibility. The NCAAs are a more remote one.

But Auburn’s players aren’t ready to count themselves out, especially with as wide open as the SEC has been this season.

“Everybody does realize that. It’s something we’ve talked about a lot,” senior Alli Smalley said. “On any given night, one team can beat the other. It doesn’t really matter what seed you are, it just depends on who’s playing best that night. That’s motivating for us, and it does give us a lot of confidence going into the tournament.”

Auburn (15-14, 8-8 SEC), the No. 6 seed in the SEC Tournament, which begins today in Nashville, Tenn., has been on both sides of that “any given night” maxim this year.

The Tigers went into Athens, Ga., and beat the ranked Bulldogs there for the first time in 18 years last Thursday.

They’ve also suffered home losses to Mississippi State (12-16, 4-12) — the 11-seed and their first-round opponent tonight at 9 — and Alabama, teams that had a combined 2-19 SEC record going into their games with Auburn.

Consider this: Auburn finished the season just three games out of second place.

“It’s wide open,” Tigers coach Nell Fortner said. “And I think every team in this conference feels the same way.”

Mississippi State, despite its record, gave Auburn all it could handle in both meetings this year.

In Starkville on Jan. 20, the Bulldogs limited the Tigers to 33.3 percent from the field and held a lead with 6 minutes to go before Auburn was able to pull away and hang on for a 45-41 win.

In Auburn on Feb. 6, Mississippi State again held Auburn to 33.3 percent shooting, took a lead into the half and kept extending it in a 57-45 win, one Fortner called one of her most disappointing losses at Auburn.

“The first time was just a battle at their place,” sophomore Blanche Alverson said. “Then at home, they just played hard. They wanted that game harder than we wanted it. They’re going to fight. They’re going to play hard.”

The Auburn win started the Bulldogs on a 4-3 finish to the conference season after starting 0-9.

“I never thought they were an 0-9 team in the first place,” Fortner said. “Their guards are quick, very good 3-point shooters. (Senior forward) Mary Kathryn Govero is an excellent player. It was just a matter of time for that chemistry to mesh, and for them to find themselves as a team.”

The bad news for the Tigers is they’ll still have to do without starting point guard Morgan Toles, who suffered a concussion against South Carolina on Feb. 20, has missed the past two games and is not expected to return for the tournament.

The good news is junior Morgan Jennings has filled in admirably the past two games, averaging 13.0 points and 3.5 assists.

Not to mention the fact that she nearly jumped over 5-foot-7 Kentucky guard Keyla Snowden’s head when she bit on a pump fake in the Tigers’ 76-62 loss Sunday.

Snowden was ducking a little. But still.

“I’ve seen her on a couple occasions where I thought she was going to hit her head on the rim,” Fortner said. “I mean, the kid just has incredible leaping ability, quickness. Just a great athlete.”

Smalley has also averaged 23.0 points in Toles’ absence, knocking down 15-of-29 shots and 6-of-11 from beyond the arc, to play a big role in Auburn’s upset of Georgia and help the Tigers stick with the Wildcats for 35 minutes of Sunday’s game.

Fortner and her players feel like they’re playing the type of basketball they want to be heading into the tournament.

“Where we are in the bracket, I feel confident, I think our team feels confident about what we can do in this tournament,” Alverson said. “It’s anybody’s game at this point.”

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