Auburn men’s basketball is having arguably its best season in program history.

The Tigers are 21-2 and have been ranked No. 1 in the AP top 25 for the last five weeks, the longest stretch the program has spent atop the rankings in its history.

Success is often rewarded and last Friday the Auburn Board of Trustees approved renovations to Neville Arena that are estimated to cost $9 million. However, the renovations come in place of original plans to build a new basketball practice facility, an idea that has now been scrapped.

Those plans were originally approved in February 2022, but stalled due to what Bruce Pearl described later that year as prioritizing Name, Image and Likeness.

“We’ve got to take care of the NIL space first — in all sports,” Pearl in September 2022. “First, that’s got to be one of our commitments and our objectives…. We’ve got some other things to take care of before we take care of the practice facility.”

Those same concerns led to changes in the proposed plans in 2025. In an interview with AL.com, Auburn athletic director John Cohen said the department has to “prioritize.”

“There was a time when facilities were the number one priority in terms of the recruitment of student athletes. Now, I think it’s very safe to say there are different priorities,” Cohen told AL.com. “I would say that facilities probably might not be number one or two at this point. Are they important? Yes. Are we proud of our facilities at Auburn? Yes. Are we thankful for the people, the donors, who have made these fabulous facilities happen? Absolutely, but the world has changed.

“We have to prepare. We have to prepare for the inevitable, which is NIL deals, amounts, payments, there’s no question that’s going to take center stage.”

Cohen described the situation as being at a crossroads, but called the revenue opportunities for student athletes, “a long time coming.”

He also spoke confidently about the importance of athletes being able to make money over having nicer or newer facilities.

“If you went to the NFL right now and you took the top 20-30 highest paid players, not one of them is going to say, ‘Yeah, I’m making this amount, and I’ve made more than this guy, but he’s got a nicer indoor facility than I do. So, I’m going to give back the 5 million and say I want a nice facility,‘” Cohen said. “That’s not how it works, nor in a free market, that’s really not how it should work.”

The materials documents for the Auburn BOT’s Feb. 7 meeting that approved the new Neville Arena renovation plans also gave reasoning for the change.

“Due to the heavy use of the competition floor and existing practice gym, this project’s originally proposed scope of work included the construction of an additional practice gymnasium and expanded team support spaces,” the materials read. “However, during the design process, the Athletics Department adjusted the scope to properly and reasonably address the original project goals without requiring the construction of an additional practice gym.”

According to the materials, the new project will be titled “Neville Arena – Team Support Improvements,” and “will renovate 22,500 square feet within the arena providing enhancements to the existing practice gym, scholarship lobby upgrades, and relocated and enlarged team meeting and office spaces within the men’s and women’s basketball suites.”

When asked about the new plans last Monday, Pearl gave similar comments to what he said about prioritizing NIL in 2022. He also mentioned renovation projects to Jordan-Hare Stadium and Plainsman Park, projects that along with NIL, put more financial stress on Auburn’s donors.

“I just didn’t think it was fair the way NIL was set up where so much of it was going to be on our donors and advertisers and people that wanted to participate in NIL to then ask them at the same time for a brand-new state of the art practice facility,” Pearl said.

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