Bruce Pearl and the Auburn Tigers’ men’s basketball team aren’t wasting anytime.

Pearl will open his 10th season on The Plains on Tuesday night with a postseason-caliber matchup with the 20th-ranked Baylor Bears in a neutral site from Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, N.D.

“We’re excited about getting the season started,” Pearl said Monday morning, minutes before he boarded the team plane to head northwest. “Auburn is the only team in the SEC that will open up against a top 25 opponent. And we’re going to try to make history tomorrow night as we’ve never beaten a top 25 team in an opener.”

Pearl says he’s heard the questions about why the Tigers are even taking part in an atypical season-opener.

“It’s real simple,” Pearl said. “Just to try to stay relevant in the world of college basketball, which is harder and harder to do now.”

Here’s everything Pearl said Monday ahead of Auburn’s season-opener against No. 20 Baylor:

Opening statement: “Baylor is a preseason top-20 team. We’re not. Baylor has three guys that have been selected to various forms of like all-Big 12 stuff, and we have one in Johni Broome. Ja’Kobe Walter is the preseason freshman of the year. Really good team, really well coached. Scott Drew and the job he’s done at Baylor arguably is as good a job as has been done in college basketball considering what he inherited and where they’re at right now. I think in 16 years, I think he’s been to 11 tournaments. They’ve been really good, really consistent. The biggest challenge right now is we have no tape on them. We got no eyes on them from the standpoint of they had two private exhibitions and had agreements not to exchange film. We’re basically basing what we saw off of what they’ve done historically. So that will be an interesting challenge early in that game to see how they’re playing differently. We’re excited about getting started.”

On the availability of Aden Holloway (ankle) and Johni Broome (shoulder), who both suffered injuries in the preseason: “Yep. I think both Aden and Johni will be able to pay tomorrow.”

On areas where Auburn has improved this offseason and applying those vs. Baylor: “Again, it’ll be really hard to duplicate Baylor’s athleticism. They are historically one of the top 20 rebounding teams in the country, one of the top 10 offensive rebounding teams in the country. They will fly to the boards, they’re athletic, they’re big, they’re physical. Our greatest challenge will be keeping them off the boards. I think from our standpoint, I’d say our halfcourt offensive execution has been pretty good for early in the season. We’ve shot the ball pretty well. Now, the quality of opponent is about to step up in a huge way. Then our challenge will continue to be defense and rebounding, and we’ll kind of see what that looks like. That’s what I would anticipate our two biggest challenges being.”

On what he’s hoping to learn about his team, win, lose or draw vs. Baylor: “That’s a great point, and it’s one of the things I keep talking to our team about — we’re going to get exposed. I would have loved to have gotten more exposed in a couple of our preseason opportunities. What I mean by exposed is: What aren’t we very good at? What are we going to struggle with? My anticipation would be physicality, rebounding, some other things I don’t want to give Baylor too much of an advanced scout. But where do we go from here? In other words, great opportunity to play a team in the Top 25. We’re not (in the Top 25), and so, can we get ourselves in there with a win? That’d be a tremendous way to start the season.

We’ve got so many quality opponents in the preseason that a week from now, we play Notre Dame in New York, in Brooklyn. It’s here. And so, how quickly can we adjust? I told the guys I wanted them — I really wanted them — to remain positive with each other, because we have so much teaching to do with so many new guys. Again, we’ve got to kind of throw it out there and know they’re going to be in the heat of battle and just see how they react.

Hey, I hope it brings out the best in them. For some, there will be challenges in knowing what we do and why we do it. And late-game situations; we could have some late-game, close-game situations, I hope, either offensively or defensively. How do we handle those situations? How are we able to execute? That’s what I’ve talked to the guys about, and I think they’re prepared for that. And again, I want them to stay really positive with each other, because I’ll be on their asses enough for everybody.”

On there being so many new faces on the roster: “They get along. They’ve done a good job pushing each other, done a good job teaching each other, and it’s been one of the harder working teams I’ve had. It’s been a team that’s gotten along so well, but we’ve had no adversity yet. Just haven’t, so obviously (we) don’t really know.

I think they — I definitely think they’re prepared. We’ve got good leaders in the locker room. We’ve got guys who have been there and done that. They’ve just not played together much. Let’s just say they’ve played two games together so far.

Now Baylor’s got a lot of new guys, too. They’ve got some core guys back, like we do, but they’ve got new pieces and they’ve got good new pieces. So I think both teams are going to learn a lot.”