Auburn Basketball Unveils Non-Conference Schedule for 2026

The Auburn Tigers are looking to rebound from a disappointing 2025 season under new head coach Steven Pearl, and, of course, a massive part of every season is the opponents a team plays. On Friday, the university officially unveiled its non-conference schedule for the upcoming season, and the Tigers appear poised to be quite strong throughout the year in these matchups.

The schedule is set 🗓️

📰: https://t.co/UdFpU94tmD pic.twitter.com/L5dXYfDrka
— Auburn Basketball (@AuburnMBB) August 28, 2026

The Tigers will wrap up their offseason with a few exhibition matchups, as they do just about every year. A preseason bout with Florida State will start things off on Oct. 14. Among these matchups is, of course, the massively hyped preseason Iron Bowl that is set to take place on Oct. 22.

The Tigers’ first regular-season game of the year will be against Samford, a fellow university in Alabama, in a matchup that is set to take place in Neville Arena on Oct. 29. Then, on Nov. 4, the Tigers will take on Southeastern Louisiana before hosting Appalachian State just five days later, on Nov. 9.

A big-time early-season matchup will await the Tigers after this tune-up period, as Steven Pearl’s squad is slated to take on Arizona on Nov. 13. The last time these two teams played, on Dec. 6, 2025, Arizona thrashed the Tigers, 97-68, so the Tigers will surely be looking to improve on that particular result from last season.

Four days after the Arizona game, the Tigers are set to compete in the Player Era Tournament, first against West Virginia on Nov. 17, then against either UNLV or Kansas on Nov. 18 before a TBD matchup on Nov. 19 to round off the tournament. All of the above games will be played in Las Vegas.

Then, the Tigers are set to take on Lipscomb on Nov. 24, before their only true non-conference road game of the year against Clemson on Dec. 1 as part of the SEC/ACC Challenge.

The Tigers aren’t done after that, either; they still have six more non-conference games to round off their year, including Eastern Kentucky on December 6, Alabama State on the 13th, Middle Tennessee and Wisconsin on Dec. 15 and Dec. 19 as part of the Rocket City Classic, Lehigh on Dec. 22 and finally Morgan State to cap off the year on Dec. 29.

The Tigers will certainly be busy this year with a jam-packed schedule on both ends of in-conference play, but with their new roster and revitalized identity, the Tigers could very well make a strong push through their schedule and finally find their way back into the NCAA Tournament.

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