There’s a reason why Auburn students started setting up tents for this one just minutes after Wednesday’s game against South Carolina ended. There’s a reason why the line stretches a near quarter-mile out from the main door of Neville Arena, around the dorms and down the Thach Concourse. It’s a culture a decade in the making and maybe a team that could be seen as a catalyst for it all is back here.

“Well, just like any other Friday afternoon here on the Plains,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl joked at his Friday press conference. “Jay Bilas is on the main floor and there are 1,000 kids camping out in Jungleville — I call it Jungleville. You can feel the energy on campus. College GameDay is here. Kentucky’s in town.”

No. 13 Auburn is playing No. 22 Kentucky at 5 p.m. Saturday at Neville Arena. The game will be broadcast on ESPN. It will be the culmination of more than 60 hours of camping and hype in a leadup to a game with ESPN’s College GameDay show set to air live from the floor at Neville Arena on Saturday morning.

Most betting lines have Auburn as between a 7.5 or 8.5 point favorite as of Friday night ahead of a game in a building where Auburn is a perfect 13-0 this season. With maybe the exception of Texas A&M, Auburn has thoroughly dominated every team it has played at home — lighter non-conference opponents and SEC leaders alike.

Auburn’s closest margin of victory at home was 11 points against Texas A&M. It was one of the few games Auburn has played at home that was truly competitive in the second half and Auburn still won by double-digits. KenPom ranks Neville Arena as one of the 25 statistically best home-court advantages in America.

It’s the building where Auburn beat Kentucky for the first time under Bruce Pearl, in 2015. Auburn had only beaten Kentucky once in 33 games before then dating back to 1990.

“We were able to do it my second year, which obviously gave us some wind in our sails and a little bit of hope that we could get this thing going,” Pearl said.

The Auburn program Pearl took over was so far from that of Kentucky, not just the leader in the SEC but an undisputed blue blood of the sport. When Pearl took over in 2014, Auburn hadn’t been ranked since 2002. Auburn reached a top-five ranking in the 1999-2000 season, but only had four seasons with a winning record between then and Pearl’s hire.

The goal for Pearl was to chase Kentucky. To attempt to bring relevancy to basketball at Auburn.

“Having been at Tennessee at a time when Auburn was good but not great, it was simply a game that we had on our schedule that we didn’t want to overlook, that we knew we had to play hard to win, but it wasn’t one that we were excited about playing,” Pearl said. “We wanted to work really hard so that Auburn basketball wouldn’t be holding the rest of the league down, and maybe someday it would be a game that other teams at the top of our league would be excited about playing.”

He’s done that. He’s 6-8 against Kentucky during his term at Auburn. Auburn only has 22 wins against Kentucky ever. He’s beaten Kentucky three straight times at Neville Arena and won five out of the last six games in Auburn.

Pearl has been part of an Auburn program and, really, a whole SEC conference that has caught up to that gold standard. After even maybe only a decade ago when Kentucky would play a difficult non-conference to balance out a light road in SEC play, the SEC is now regarded by several national pundits as the deepest and best major conference in America. For basketball.

Kentucky has 18 SEC regular season titles but has won just one out of the last six. Auburn and Alabama have each won twice in that time.

Pearl has brought the Kentucky game to be one that matters immensely on Auburn’s schedule not just because of the name of the opponent, but because of the trophy-related stakes for Auburn if it can win. This will be the second time in the last five years that Auburn-Kentucky is a College GameDay matchup, and the fourth time in five years the show has come to Auburn. That is making Auburn relevant.

And now Auburn is competing and pushing to win the SEC again, just one game back of the SEC leader — Alabama. Beat Kentucky, and it is name recognition on an NCAA Tournament resume. Beat Kentucky, and keep pace in the league standings.

That’s the reason why students are waiting outside. They’ll be entering the Jungle soon.

“Well, I mean Kentucky is still the gold standard in our league,” Pearl said. “They always will be. That’s never going to change. If you want to be relevant in the world of college basketball, if you want to be relevant in the SEC, you’ve got to beat Kentucky every now and then.”

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