Auburn (20-12) is a no. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will play no. 10 seed Iowa at Legacy Arena Thursday at 5:50 CT in Birmingham on TNT.

Jim Nantz, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill, and Tracy Woolfson will be the broadcast crew for the matchup. If Auburn wins, they will advance to Saturday’s game against either top-seeded Houston (31-3) or No. 16 Northern Kentucky (22-12) in the second round.

Iowa (19-13) reached the NCAA Tournament with an at-large berth out of the Big Ten Conference, where they were 11-9 in league play and fell to Ohio State in the conference tournament second round.

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Auburn opens in Birmingham against Iowa

Observations from Auburn’s loss

The tournament matchup is the first matchup between the Tigers and Hawkeyes. Despite the programs not playing each other, there is a tie with Tigers’ head coach Bruce Pearl. He served as an assistant coach at Iowa from 1986-1992 under his mentor Tom Davis.

Nubyjas Wilborn covers Auburn for Alabama Media Group.