The Tigers brutal non-SEC slate is a challenge that Bruce Pearl is not taking lightly.
Auburn head men’s basketball coach [autotag]Bruce Pearl[/autotag] took the podium Tuesday during SEC Media Day to discuss his team’s upcoming season.
One of the biggest storylines heading into the season for the defending SEC Tournament champions is their nonconference schedule, which is among the most challenging in all of college basketball. The Tigers are set to meet up with 14 teams who are either ranked in the preseason Associated Press poll or are receiving votes during its 2024-25 slate.
Some headliners of Auburn’s nonconference slate include No. 4 Houston, No. 7 Duke, and No. 14 Purdue. The possibility of facing the defending national champions, No. 3 UConn as well as No. 9 North Carolina is on the table for Auburn as part of the Maui Invitational competition that takes place this November.
Pearl was asked about his schedule and mentioned that his teams have worked toward being competitive enough to earn the right to play some of the sport’s heavy hitters during regular season play and that he is honored that coaches such as Houston’s Kelvin Sampson and Purdue’s Matt Painter consider Auburn to be a great draw for neutral site action. When breaking down the reasoning for building a challenging schedule, Pearl says that it is time for his squad to prove that they “belong.”
“Well, two things jump out at me. Number one, you’d better be careful what you wish for. We’ve got all we can handle for sure. But it’s what we built. It’s what we worked. It’s easier to get someplace than it is to stay someplace. So to try to stay competitive at Auburn has been a great, great challenge, and we’ve managed to win four championships in the last seven years, two regular season and two tournament, with four different teams. Sometimes you’ve got to act like you belong, and you can’t always control the recruiting, you can’t control the transfer portal, you can’t control a lot of things that are happening, but you can control who you schedule.”
Pearl also addresses the opportunity that a taxing schedule brings to their players, and how it improves the mental aspect of the game.
“I just think from the standpoint of our players, I think our players deserve the opportunity to play against the best and have that great, great challenge. Adversity doesn’t always build character, but adversity will reveal character. We’re going to have some adversity. We’re going to lose some games in non-conference, perhaps more than we have in the past, just because of the strength of the schedule. How do we handle that? How do we bounce back? What do we learn? And obviously getting better throughout the season. Then also if you look at the SEC-ACC matchup, the fact that Alabama and Auburn are both going to North Carolina and Duke and a lot of responsibility in those two matchups because those are going to be two of the hardest games in that matchup, and so I will wear the responsibility of trying to uphold our end, knowing the challenge of going to Duke.”
Auburn kicks off the 2024-25 campaign on Wednesday, Nov. 6 at Neville Arena against the Vermont Catamounts. The Tigers will then go through their gauntlet of nonconference foes before opening SEC play with Missouri on Saturday, Jan. 4.
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