Auburn didn’t need to use any words late last Thursday night; the program let one simple emoji do the talking.

Shortly after 10:30 that night, Auburn’s basketball program again made history under Bruce Pearl. As then-No. 6 Gonzaga lost at home to Loyola Marymount, 68-67, snapping the Bulldogs’ 76-game winning streak at home, Auburn staked claim to the nation’s longest active home winning streak. The Tigers have won 28 straight games at Neville Arena (which was still Auburn Arena when the streak began), and upon claiming that distinction of having the most consecutive home wins in college basketball, the program’s Twitter account simply posted the emoji of a smiling face wearing sunglasses.

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“It puts a target on our back like it has all season, everyone wants to break the record, but we’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing in order to get it,” center Johni Broome said. “That streak has been going on for the last two or three years. It’s our job to keep it going and keep defending home court.”

The streak began nearly two full years ago — just under 23 months, to be precise — on Feb. 27, 2021, and has spanned the last three seasons heading into Wednesday night’s matchup with Texas A&M at Neville Arena. The game that kicked off the streak was a 77-72 win against 25th-ranked Tennessee that saw five Auburn players score in double figures, led by a 23-point, seven-rebound effort from Allen Flanigan, then a sophomore. The most recent entry came 11 days ago in the form of a 69-63 win against Mississippi State.

In between, Neville Arena has seen its share of big moments and close calls.

Four of Auburn’s wins during its current streak have come against opponents ranked in the AP top-25, making each of those Quadrant 1 wins in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament selection committee. First among them was Tennessee in that win that sparked the streak. Auburn also has wins at home against then-No. 16 LSU and then-No. 12 Kentucky last season. Auburn handily defeated LSU, 70-55, in the teams’ SEC opener on Dec. 29, 2021. Three-plus weeks later, Auburn defeated Kentucky, 80-71, in a highly anticipated matchup on the Plains. The win against the Wildcats was arguably the program’s biggest at home since its regular-season finale during the Final Four season in 2019 — an 84-80 comeback win against then-No. 5 Tennessee that marked the Tigers’ first win against a top-five team since 1995 — and it vaulted the program to its first-ever No. 1 ranking in the AP poll two days later.

The most recent ranked win during the streak was earlier this month, when Auburn took down then-No. 13 Arkansas, 72-59, in a game Pearl afterward called “probably one of the top four or five wins” he has experienced at Neville Arena during his nine seasons at Auburn. The Tigers led the Razorbacks wire-to-wire, and the win secured an important Quadrant 1 victory on its postseason resume this season.

“Making history and making history over a number of years is impactful; that’s part of what you’re trying to do with a program or a university, teams and everything,” Pearl said Tuesday. “Obviously, it speaks to The Jungle and the incredible support. It speaks to the sellouts and the Auburn family’s commitment and the great environment — but that environment’s not going to rebound for us, and it’s not going to make shots.”

That’s true, but Auburn’s homecourt advantage has become undeniable over the years. The Tigers are 84-10 over the last five seasons at home, dating back to Pearl’s first SEC title season with the program. The Jungle has become one of the most affecting home environments in the country, and it has helped set the tone for Auburn on its home floor. In eight of Auburn’s wins during its current home streak, it has never trailed. In nine others, the Tigers played from behind for fewer than 2 minutes. In all, Auburn has trailed for just 134 minutes and 40 seconds of a possible 1,120 minutes on its home floor during the streak — just 12 percent of total game time.

While the Tigers have been in control for much of the time and secured their share of big wins during the streak, they’ve also endured some close calls at Neville Arena while keeping the streak intact.

Auburn’s average margin of victory at home over those last 28 wins has been 15 points, but eight of those victories have come by single digits, including five of them this season as Pearl’s team has had some offensive inefficiencies and leaned on its tenacious defense many times this year. Along with the streak-starting win against Tennessee two years ago, Auburn’s streak flirted with derailment before it ever really gained momentum; the program closed out the 2020-21 season with a 78-71 win against Mississippi State after trailing at halftime against the Bulldogs and exchanging blows for much of a tight second half.

Last season, Auburn’s closest game at home was in that top-25 tilt against Kentucky. The Wildcats led by as many as 10 in the first half, took a four-point lead into halftime but were outscored by 13 in the second half and didn’t hold a lead for the game’s final 14:50.

This season, however, there have been closer calls for Auburn at home. Wins against South Florida, Saint Louis, Georgia State, Florida and Mississippi State have all been decided by eight points or fewer.

USF holds the distinction of leading Auburn for the longest period of time out of any team the Tigers have defeated during their home streak. The Bulls led their matchup for 23 minutes and 57 seconds earlier in the season, and the Bulls even took a nine-point lead into the locker room, but the Tigers responded big-time in the second half. Saint Louis provided Auburn with its tightest nonconference matchup at Neville Arena during the streak, with the Tigers holding on for a five-point win the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The Billikens led by as many as five with less than 5 minutes to play and even led as last as the final 2 minutes before the Tigers surged ahead down the stretch thanks to a 13-2 run to close the game.

The closest call to date came in Auburn’s SEC opener against Florida in late December, when the Tigers survived thanks to a Chris Moore steal in the closing seconds of a one-point game that led to a Wendell Green Jr. layup to seal the 61-58 victory.

Thanks to Gonzaga’s loss, Auburn’s streak is far and away the longest active one in the country. UCLA (19) and Kent State (18) are the next-closest teams. If Auburn wants to hold on to that designation and keep its streak intact, it’ll have to navigate what’s sure to be a tougher stretch of games at Neville Arena over the final month-plus of the season. Along with looming matchups against No. 2 Alabama (Feb. 11) and No. 4 Tennessee (March 4), Auburn will go toe to toe with Texas A&M (13-6, 5-1 SEC) on Wednesday night in the Tigers’ first home game since claiming that top spot.

“Obviously, we’ll have to continue to be playing better and better,” Pearl said. “But I’m so obviously proud of what the guys have done and the position that we put ourselves in. We put ourselves in position, once again, to compete at the highest level. That’s all you can ask for. There are a lot of teams here at the end of January that aren’t really playing for much. We’re still in this thing.”

The Aggies have won three of four against the Tigers since Buzz Williams took over as head coach. That includes a win on the Plains during the 2019-20 season in what was Auburn’s home finale that year. Auburn won last year’s matchup at Neville Arena against Texas A&M, 75-58, but then lost to the Aggies in the SEC Tournament, 67-62, in Tampa, Fla.

If Auburn can get by Texas A&M, the Tigers will be within one win of the second-longest home winning streak in program history. Auburn won 30 consecutive home games between 1998-2000—beginning with an opening-round NIT win against Southern Miss at the end of the 1997-98 season and ending on a 55-53 loss to No. 12 LSU on March 1, 2000. If Auburn can keep its current streak intact through the end of this season—navigating a treacherous SEC slate along the way—it will head into next season with a chance to break the program’s all-time record of 36 consecutive home wins from 1957-61.

Although Pearl has long emphasized the opportunity to make history at Auburn, the Tigers aren’t trying to focus too much on their 28-game home winning streak and its significance beyond putting the team in a relevant spot at this juncture of the season—second in the SEC, ranked 15th in the nation and in prime position for a fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in the last five postseasons.

“It’s a streak,” Broome said. “It’s always a good thing to have one, but like I said, you can’t have too much emphasis on the streak. You’ve got to be able to win on the road and at home in the SEC in order to get to where we want to be at in the end of the season, playing in late March, early April.”

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