Auburn’s men’s basketball team’s 2023-24 non-conference schedule is no walk in the park.

The Tigers’ program unveiled a non-conference slate that features a pair of potential preseason Top 10 teams and six Power 5 programs from out of the ACC, Big 10, Big 12 and Pac-12. The schedule’s six Power 5 teams is the most the Tigers have seen in program history, one upping five in the 2016-17 season.

“When you set up your non-conference schedule, you send a message to your players and to your fanbase how good you think you will be,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said in a release. “I don’t try to do it that way. We try to compete for championships and we’ve won three in the last six years. This non-conference schedule will get us ready for what’s going to be the most competitive SEC since I’ve been at Auburn.”

From Neville Arena, the Tigers are set to host Auburn University at Montgomery in an exhibition game on Nov. 1, in addition to home games against Southeastern Louisiana (Nov. 10), Alabama A&M (Nov. 21), Virginia Tech (Nov. 29), USC (Dec. 17), Alabama State (Dec. 22), Chattanooga (Dec. 30) and Penn (Jan. 2).

Auburn’s battle with USC is set to be highly anticipated by Pearl, his team and Auburn fans.

“USC is a preseason Top 10 team that will come into Neville Arena with a very talented roster,” Pearl said. “To have a program like USC travel to Auburn for basketball is comparable to USC coming into Jordan-Hare Stadium and how good its program has been historically in football. USC has one of those kind of basketball programs now.”

The Tigers’ non-conference slate also features a season-opening neutral site meeting with the 2021 national championship-winning Baylor Bears at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D. Baylor is just one of four teams on Auburn’s schedule that reached the NCAA Tournament last season.

Auburn will also see Indiana at Atlanta’s Holiday Hoopsgiving and UNC-Asheville at Huntsville’s Rocket City Classic, as well as a trip to the Legends Classic in Brooklyn, where the Tigers draw Notre Dame and either Oklahoma State or St. Bonaventure.

“There’s no chance we are dumbing it down, especially with the teams that we are playing on neutral courts,” Pearl said. “We will take our team back to Brooklyn where we won the tournament in 2019. Having previously coached at Southern Indiana, I understand what basketball means in the state of Indiana. IU is a Top 10 team and will be a tough test in Atlanta.”

Auburn’s non-conference schedule features just one true road game: a visit to Appalachian State on Dec. 3.

The Tigers’ SEC schedule and tipoff times will be released at a later date.