Auburn Men’s Basketball is set to face the Houston Cougars this upcoming regular season on Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, at the Toyota Center in Houston.
The contest will mark the first game of a two-year neutral series between Auburn and Houston as the schools will face off again in 2025, at Legacy Arena at the BJCC in Birmingham, AL.
“Kelvin Sampson has returned the Houston Basketball program back to the days of greatness with Guy Lewis, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler,” head coach Bruce Pearl said in a released statement. “His teams fight hard and are physical. They play the right way. With our SEC/ACC Challenge game at Duke and this game versus Houston at the Toyota Center, we will have two road contests against the preseason top two teams in the country. That’s never happened in Auburn Basketball history, so be careful of what you wish for.”
The last time Auburn played multiple Top 10 non-conference opponents was during the 2020-21 season (No. 1 Gonzaga and No. 2 Baylor) and the 2006-07 season (No. 7 Wisconsin and No. 2 Pittsburgh). The program has never faced three-or-more Top 10-ranked opponents in non-conference play in a single season.
The Tigers will take on consensus preseason No. 1 Duke in the SEC/ACC Challenge on Wednesday, Dec. 4, at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C., and preseason No. 6 and national runner-up Purdue on Saturday, Dec. 21, at Legacy Arena in Birmingham.
They could potentially face defending national champion UConn, preseason No. 3 Iowa State, preseason No. 4 North Carolina, Colorado, Dayton, Memphis or Michigan State when the 2024 Maui Invitational bracket is revealed later this month.
Auburn’s matchup against Houston at the Toyota Center will be a part of the Battleground 2k hoops series which will also include a game between Rice and Florida State in the doubleheader.
The Tigers most recently faced the Cougars in the second round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament in Birmingham, AL. Houston, as a one-seed, was able to erase a 10-point halftime deficit to end Auburn’s 2022-23 season 81-64 and extend their lead in the all-time series over the Tigers 7-1.
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Patrick is a junior from Auburn, Alabama, double majoring in journalism and marketing. He started with The Plainsman in the fall of 2022.
You can follow him on X (Twitter) at @patrickabingham
