On Wednesday morning, Bruce Pearl and the Auburn Basketball team announced their full non-conference schedule for the 2016-17 season. It is no secret that Pearl likes for his teams to be tested early and often, and the upcoming non-conference schedule will do just that.
“I’ve always believed that you schedule where you want your program to be regardless of whether it is ready or not,” said Pearl. “This is one of the toughest non-conference schedules in college basketball and our program will be challenged. But, if we can manage to win a couple of games that we are not supposed to and grind out a few others, we could put our program in position to go someplace we haven’t gone in a long time, and that is postseason.”
The Tigers are coming off a season where injuries lead to an 11-20 record. A new look Auburn basketball team will be tested, mostly on the road, at UConn, UAB and TCU. The Tigers will also meet Boston College and Oklahoma on neutral floors.
"This is one of the toughest non-conference schedules in college basketball and our program will be challenged," said Pearl "If we can manage to win a couple of games that we are not supposed to and grind out a few others, we could put our program in position to go some place we haven’t gone in a long time, and that is postseason.”
In the past few seasons Pearl has welcomed Xavier, Colorado and Oklahoma State to the Plains, and looked forward to hosting teams like UConn in Auburn Arena in the future.
“One of our challenges in scheduling is to attract great teams to Auburn Arena,” Pearl said. “We have a great homecourt advantage, a tough place to play. This isn’t exactly fertile recruiting ground for people to come to and historically our RPI hasn’t been very strong so we aren’t an attractive opponent. We believe times are changing. To be able to get a program like UConn back in our building in 2017, we think we have a chance to be a pretty good team. It gives us an opportunity to build our resume.”
“In the last couple of years, we have played Xavier, Colorado and Oklahoma State at home and that’s one of the things in developing a program is to develop your schedule, challenge your players and bring quality opponents into your own building,” Pearl added.
Auburn will take on the North Florida Ospreys in Auburn Arena on Friday Nov. 11 to tip off the 2016-17 regular season.
Auburn Basketball’s 2016-17 non-conference schedule
Fri. Nov. 4 Montevallo (exh.)
Fri. Nov. 11 North Florida
Mon. Nov. 14 (1) Georgia State
Thur. Nov. 17 (1) Eastern Kentucky
Tue. Nov. 22 (2) Texas Tech (CBS Sports Network)
Wed. Nov. 23 (2) Purdue/Utah State (CBS Sports Network)
Tue. Nov. 29 USC-Upstate
Sat. Dec. 3 at UAB
Mon. Dec. 12 (3) Boston College
Thur. Dec. 15 Coastal Carolina
Sun. Dec. 18 Mercer
Wed. Dec. 21 (4) Oklahoma
Fri. Dec. 23 at UConn
Sat. Jan. 28 (5) at TCU
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