Auburn men’s basketball will start Southeastern Conference play as the No. 2 team in the AP Top 25.

Monday’s rankings placed the Tigers second behind Tennessee for the fourth week in a row, earning 20 first place votes to the Volunteers’ 41. Auburn also maintains the No. 2 spot despite not playing last week.

With conference play set to begin this week, 10 SEC teams are ranked in the top 25 and five landed in the top 10. Florida, Alabama and Kentucky sit behind Auburn and Tennessee in the top, and Auburn will play the four other top 10 schools during conference play.

Auburn starts the SEC gauntlet at home against Missouri on Saturday, but will finish nonconference play with a home game against Monmouth Monday evening.

Tipoff is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and will be streaming on SEC Network+ and ESPN+.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m