Auburn officially punched its ticket to the Big Dance.

Bruce Pearl’s program earned its second consecutive NCAA Tournament berth — and its fourth in the last five postseasons — during Sunday’s selection show, when the Tigers were tabbed as a ninth-seed in the Midwest Region. Auburn (20-12) will face eighth-seeded Iowa (19-13) in the opening round of the tournament Thursday in Birmingham. It’s the first time in 12 all-time NCAA Tournament appearances that Auburn has drawn a nine-seed.

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Tipoff time and television channel for Auburn’s matchup with Iowa will be announced later Sunday.

Auburn earned its NCAA Tournament bid despite struggling to close out games during the final stretch of the season, when the Tigers went 4-9 over their final 13 games and lost six of those games by five points or fewer, with five of those losses coming in Quad 1 matchups. Still, Auburn built a strong-enough resume throughout the season to warrant an at-large bid; the Tigers entered Selection Sunday ranked 32nd in the NET, and their 79-70 victory against Tennessee (NET No. 4) in the regular-season finale last week gave Pearl’s team a signature win that all but shored up its March Madness berth.

Now the Tigers head to their fourth NCAA Tournament in nine seasons under Pearl. The program also went dancing in 2018, 2019 and 2022; there was no NCAA Tournament in 2020 due to the pandemic, and Auburn served a self-imposed postseason ban in 2021. Prior to Pearl’s arrival on the Plains, Auburn had just eight NCAA Tournament appearances in program history and none since 2003.

The Tigers have won at least one NCAA Tournament game in each of their prior three March Madness trips during Pearl’s tenure. Auburn won in the first round against College of Charleston in 2018 as a No. 4 seed before losing to Clemson in the Round of 32. The following year, fifth-seeded Auburn made a run to the Final Four for the first time in program history before losing to Virginia in the semifinal. Last year, Auburn earned a No. 2 seed and defeated Jacksonville State in the opening round before bowing out to Miami in the second round.

To keep that trend intact, Auburn will have to go through Iowa in the opening round this week. If the Tigers win, they would face either top-seeded Houston or 16th-seeded Northern Kentucky in the second round Saturday with a trip to the Sweet 16 in Kansas City on the line. Auburn’s last Sweet 16 appearance, in 2019, also took place in Kansas City.

AL.com will update this post.

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.