Men to face Duke (merged threads)

[aubiefifty 18,508]

al.com

Auburn to face Duke at Cameron Indoor in SEC-ACC challenge

Updated: Jun. 12, 2024, 1:16 p.m.|Published: Jun. 12, 2024, 1:10 p.m.

2–3 minutes

Auburn players, Bruce Pearl cut down nets after winning SEC Tournament

After an SEC Tournament title-winning season, Auburn will get a trip to one of college basketball’s most storied arenas this winter.

Auburn will face Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium in the 2024-25 season, the second year of the SEC-ACC challenge, according to a report from CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein. The game is set for Wednesday, Dec. 4.

Auburn and Duke have played four previous times, and Duke won every matchup including two at Cameron Indoor. Auburn’s last time in Durham, North Carolina was in 1981.

Auburn faced Virginia Tech last season at Neville Arena. The Tigers won the Nov. 29 game 74-57. Center Johni Broome scored 30 points.

That was the first year of the SEC-ACC challenge which took the place of previous SEC-Big 12 matchups.

Auburn’s 2024-25 basketball schedule continues to take shape. In May, Auburn found out its SEC opponents and locations for the upcoming season, but dates of games will be announced closer to the season.

Home & Away: Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia

Home: Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma, Mississippi State

Away: Kentucky, LSU, Vanderbilt, Texas, Texas A&M, South Carolina

The new SEC schedule including Texas and Oklahoma means a basketball schedule with fewer home and away matchups than prior years. Auburn will have two permanent home and away opponents and one rotating. For Auburn, Alabama and Georgia will be the permanent opponents and Ole Miss is this year’s rotating team.

Auburn still has several non-conference game slots to fill and those will continue to settle over the course of the summer.

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

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[keeperoftheplains 160]

Why have permanent opponents?  And if we must, why uga?  I suppose it helps recruiting in Georgia somewhat but most of the players come from Atlanta not Athens.  I'd much rather AU beat UTenn twice in one year.

[Lotto 273]

On 6/13/2024 at 9:30 AM, keeperoftheplains said:

Why have permanent opponents?  And if we must, why uga?  I suppose it helps recruiting in Georgia somewhat but most of the players come from Atlanta not Athens.  I'd much rather AU beat UTenn twice in one year.

Georgia is ours in football too

[Cardin Drake 2,091]

Duke is going to be an interesting game. They are absolutely loaded, bringing in the #1 class last year (including Cooper Flagg), and a great transfer group.  No idea how they will play together, but the talent is something else.  We need more out of conference games like this. 

[TigerPAC 1,057]

can only imagine the cost of tickets!

[aubiefifty 18,508]

 

247sports.com

 

Pearl SEC ACC choosing Auburn to play at Duke speaks for itself

Nathan King

5–6 minutes

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HOOVER, Alabama — Bruce Pearl has wondered aloud for the past few years when his program was going to get some more national respect from a scheduling perspective.

Just last season, after the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge where Auburn hosted Virginia Tech, Pearl pointed out the marquee matchup of Duke at Arkansas before the Tigers' SEC opener against the Razorbacks. Underscoring the importance of a tone-setting SEC road win was Pearl's assertion that Auburn's perception still needed to be improved in order for his team to receive more high-powered opponents in the cross-conference matchups. 

"Auburn didn't get Duke (last season)," Pearl said in January before the trip to Fayetteville. "Auburn didn't get North Carolina. … Unless we can go on the road and beat a team like Arkansas, we're going to get Virginia Tech, and they're going to get Duke."

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Well, his Tigers thrashed Arkansas by 32 points. And now, as he coincidentally predicted, they're getting Duke.

Of course, Auburn has done much more of late to raise its profile than just a single victory. Last season's squad winning 27 games and an SEC Tournament title certainly added to Auburn's already impressive rise under Pearl over the past several seasons.

And the mega matchup at Duke offers some further validation to all the success the program has amassed under Pearl.

"I think the decision (by the SEC and ACC) obviously speaks for itself," Pearl said Tuesday before an Auburn alumni event outside Birmingham. "... I've got to be careful what I wish for."

Auburn will travel to Cameron Indoor Stadium for this coming season's ACC/SEC Challenge on Dec. 4, as announced by the conferences earlier this month. How significant is that draw for the Tigers? Pearl's team will become the first SEC program to play a road game at Duke since Florida in 1998.

As Pearl put it when the game was announced a couple weeks ago, "I can no longer play the 'we don't get any respect' card."

That same Wednesday night in December, Alabama will be playing in an equally illustrious matchup at North Carolina — the two rivals, both of whom figure to be championship contenders, less than 10 miles down the road from one another in historic arenas. 

It's a major upgrade in the ACC/SEC Challenge as compared to last season.

"Both (Nate) Oats and I together asked ourselves a question (last year): Who are we going to get — where do they perceive Auburn and Alabama's programs?" Pearl said. "The answer was somewhere in the middle of the league against Clemson or Virginia Tech. Those are really good programs, but those programs weren't Duke, North Carolina, Miami, Virginia. … Last year, Arkansas got Duke, Texas A&M got Virginia, Tennessee got North Carolina and Duke at Arkansas. 

"This year, Alabama and Auburn have Duke and North Carolina."

As shiny as the Duke matchup is on Auburn's 2024-25 schedule, it may not even be the biggest game, opponent-wise, on the nonconference slate. The week before that trip, Auburn will be at the Maui Invitational against loaded field that includes two-time defending national champion UConn, plus North Carolina, Michigan State, Dayton, Iowa State, Memphis and Colorado. 

That's not to mention an unnamed opponent in Birmingham in December, which Pearl confirmed Tuesday is in the works, though the contracts haven't been finalized, so he's not at liberty to share details yet. He believes it's a matchup that "could actually sell the building out."

So Auburn will have a good idea of its potential against the best competition in the country before it even begins SEC play in an expanded conference that will aim for double-digit NCAA Tournament bids. 

It should be a nonconference slate fitting of a national contender. And that's how Pearl has wanted it. 

"We could literally have four games in a row where we'd be the underdog (from Maui to Duke)," Pearl said. "Potentially. What it says is, look, I have confidence in my team. We've got to prepare ourselves to play in what I think will be the best the SEC has been in a long time. I think there will be nine teams (in the SEC) in the top 30-35 teams in college basketball preseason. That means the ninth-best team could be one of the top-30 teams (in the country)."

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