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The Auburn and Iowa State programs have been linked together for quite some time in multiple sports. Now they’ll actually face each other on the court.

Auburn’s highly anticipated non-conference schedule is starting to come together.

Auburn’s SEC/Big 12 Challenge Set

Auburn has not participated in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge for the past 2 years. They last played in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge in the 2016-2017 season when they defeated TCU in Fort Worth.

That will change this year as Tuesday, we (finally) learned who Auburn’s Big 12 opponent will be for the Tigers return to the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. According to Jon Rothstein, Auburn will host the Iowa State Cyclones on Saturday January 25, 2020.

This will be the Cyclones 1st ever trip to Auburn. The teams last met in December 2013, in the inaugural year of the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. That game was won by Iowa State by a score of 99-70, in Ames.

Like Auburn, the Cyclones won their conference tournament last year and lost their top 3 scorers from last year’s team. One of the returning players for Iowa State is sophomore guard Tyrese Haliburton, who helped Team USA’s Under 19 World Cup team win a gold medal. Iowa State has made the NCAA Tournament 7 of the last 8 years and will bring a really good team to Auburn Arena in January.

Iowa State leads the all-time series 2-1 with the win in 2013 as well as beating the Tigers in the 2000 NCAA Tournament. Auburn’s only win in the series came back in 1986.

The remaining SEC/Big 12 Challenge Games will be:

This is a really good slate of games set for the last Saturday in January, but personally, I would have loved to have seen 2 of the Final Four teams face off in this year’s challenge in Auburn and Texas Tech.

Auburn’s date with South Alabama is set

So I missed this (and I think a lot of people did) but we now know the Tigers will travel to Mobile to play the Jaguars on Tuesday, November 12th. This is part of a 2-for-1 deal as the Jaguars and Tigers opened last season in Auburn Arena to begin this 3-year series. Auburn will perhaps be playing 2 of their first 3 games on the road or (depending on how the schedule aligns) their first 2 games away from Auburn Arena. Auburn is slated to face Davidson on Friday, November 8th in Annapolis, Maryland. The game against South Alabama will be a great opportunity for fans in the southern part of Alabama and the surrounding areas to see Auburn fairly close to home.

Furman will come to Auburn December 5th

Yesterday, Jon Rothstein also reported that Auburn would host Furman this upcoming basketball season. According to this tweet from Auburn beat writer Nathan King, that game will take place on Thursday, December 5th. (It also lists all of the other confirmed games for next season).

With these 3 games and dates now known, I would imagine there’s still 2, possibly 3 more dates to complete Auburn’s non-conference schedule. Auburn still has yet to announce their opponent for the Mike Slive Invitational and I would imagine there will be 1-2 more home games added to the schedule as well. We are 15 weeks away from the start of the College Basketball season!

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/7/23/20707786/auburn-to-host-iowa-state-in-the-sec-big-12-challenge-more-basketball-scheduling-updates