Auburn opens the season as No. 12 team in ESPN’s Basketball Power Index ranking

Expectations are high for Bruce Pearl and the Auburn Tigers to start the season.

The start of the college basketball season is nearly here and there is plenty of hype around [autotag]Bruce Pearl[/autotag] and the Auburn Tigers.

ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (BPI) has the Tigers ranked No. 12 in the country ahead of the start of the college basketball season.

The BPI “is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of performance going forward. BPI represents how many points above or below average a team is.”

The metric can also be used to predict games and the Tigers are heavy favorites in their first two games of the season. They will open the season Monday night against the George Mason Patriots in Neville Arena.

They have an 85.6% chance to beat the Patriots and are predicted to win by 11.6 points.

They will return to action Friday in Neville Arena to take on the USF Bulls. They have an even better chance of winning this game. Being given a 91% chance to beat the Bulls and are predicted to win by 15 points.

Both games are scheduled to start at 7 p.m. CT and will be on ESPN+ and SEC Network+.

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