Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl isn’t sure how students are going to react when two former Tigers return to Neville Arena on Saturday night.

His urge to the crowd: remember that Allen and Wes Flanigan are both Auburn graduates, and Auburn men.

“Well the biggest thing that I’ve said, and it’s really the only thing I’ve said about it, is just that I hope that our students remember that those guys both graduated from Auburn,” Pearl said during a Friday press conference. “They’re both Auburn men, and to take that into consideration. Because I’d rather have them treated as Auburn men — and opponents — than any animosity about the transfer.”

No. 13 Auburn will host No. 22 Ole Miss at 7:30 p.m. It will be the first time the Flanigan father and son duo return to their alma mater since leaving last offseason.

Wes Flanigan was hired to join new Ole Miss head coach Chris Beard’s staff last April. Flanigan had previously been a Beard assistant, but had been on Pearl’s staff since 2018. Allen Flanigan followed soon after.

“It wasn’t as difficult as you would think,” Flanigan said of his transfer at SEC basketball media days in October. “At Ole Miss, I’m closer to home. It’s two hours to the house in Little Rock. At Auburn, it was 8 hours. So I was farther away from a lot of people that I miss and love dearly in my family back home. I’m even closer.”

As a player at Auburn in the 1990s, Wes Flanigan scored more than 1,000 points. Allen Flanigan averaged double-digit points per game for a season twice during his four years at Auburn.

Now at Ole Miss still playing for his father, Allen Flanigan is off to the best season of his career. He is averaging 16.5 points per game on an Ole Miss team that has been one of the biggest surprises in the country this season.

Saturday’s matchup will be the first time Auburn and Ole Miss will ever play while both being ranked in the top 25.

“Wes Flanigan is a huge, huge addition to our staff,” Beard said during his press conference at SEC basketball media days. “Before I start talking about basketball, he’s one of my best friends in life. What we built together and experienced at Little Rock was special. Our friendship, pulling for him in Auburn with Coach Pearl, Wes has been a dear friend.”

How much bad blood lingers from the departures may be evident in concise press conference answers from Pearl containing several long pauses to collect his thoughts. He had praise for the improvement Allen Flanigan has made this season and noted how a rule change in how officials call block versus charge fouls have been benefitted his former guard’s game.

Some of Allen Flanigan’s former Auburn teammates have kept in touch with him since he left.

“We usually keep basketball out of it for the most part,” Auburn forward Chris Moore said. “We’re more of a family and brotherhood and friends than just opponents. We joke around from time to time, but for the most part it’s just brotherly love conversations.”

Moore said he and Allen Flanigan have known each other since they were kids, both growing up in Arkansas. He is one of the few Auburn players to have been Flanigan’s opponent before. Forward Chaney Johnson played against Flanigan and Auburn last year as a member of the Alabama-Huntsville team.

Both Moore and forward Jaylin Williams expect the game to be chippy. That’s the nature of facing your former coach and former teammate. But at least publicly, Auburn players haven’t expressed any ill will.

“It’ll be good to see Al,” Williams said. “I haven’t seen him and Coach Flan in a while. Coach Flan is one of the ones that really helped me to get here to Auburn. So I’m thankful for him to give the opportunity to coach me here. But it’ll be fun. A little chippy. A little talk. But at the end of the day, that’s still my brother and that’s how it’s going to be.”

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]