Auburn’s men’s basketball team won’t be playing an easy slate of games next season, head coach Bruce Pearl told reporters in a brief availability from Alexander City’s Willow Point Golf & Country Club, where Pearl was hosting his Fore The Children Golf Classic on Monday.

Responding to a question about incoming freshmen Jahki Howard and Tahaad Pettiford, Pearl hinted at the Tigers playing a tough non-conference schedule during the 2024-25 season.

“The jump from high school to college basketball is enormous, and especially enormous when we’re gonna play a non-conference schedule… we’re gonna have the toughest non-conference schedule that we’ve ever had,” Pearl said.

On April 4, 2023, it was announced that the Tigers would be returning to Hawaii in 2024 to compete in the 2024 Maui Jim Maui Invitational, which is set to take place on Nov. 25-27.

There in Maui, Auburn is expected to be joined by Colorado, Dayton, Iowa State, Memphis, Michigan State, North Carolina and UConn, which will be coming off its second national championship-winning season in back-to-back years.

While it’s unclear which of the seven teams Auburn will be paired with come November, the likelihood the Tigers see a team coming off a NCAA Tournament appearance is high as Memphis stands as the only program in the invitational’s eight-team field that missed out on a tournament bid in 2024.

Pearl added that while some of Auburn’s non-conference games have been released, there are others that are still in the works.

“When we get those contracts signed, we’ll get that to you,” Pearl said.

The Tigers’ remaining non-conference matchups will help construct a 2024-25 schedule that will feature 18 SEC games, formatted as follows:

Home & Away: Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia

Home: Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma, Mississippi State

Away: Kentucky, LSU, Vanderbilt, Texas, Texas A&M, South Carolina

Dates for Auburn’s SEC games haven’t been released.