While Auburn men’s basketball played one of the toughest nonconference schedules in the country, the team’s newcomers have yet to experience the grind of Southeastern Conference play.

The SEC is arguably stronger than ever before in 2025, with every team ranked 63rd or higher in KenPom’s efficiency ratings. While Auburn has faced its fair share of good teams already, it hasn’t yet had to play this many on a consistent basis.

Many of Auburn’s key players already know what that grind is like, but it will be a new challenge for Georgia Tech transfer Miles Kelly and true freshman guard Tahaad Pettiford, who spoke to reporters Friday afternoon ahead of their SEC debuts on Saturday.

Kelly has three seasons of experience playing in the ACC, a strong conference in its own right, but not quite what the SEC is in 2025. When asked how it compared, he said there’s high-level basketball in both leagues, but the physicality of the SEC will be the biggest adjustment.

“The only thing I would say that people have warned me about with the SEC is it’s a lot more physical,” Kelly said. “So, we’ll see tomorrow if it’s more physical, but ACC and SEC are two high-level basketball conferences that get a lot of recognition.”

Another thing that sticks out to Kelly is the depth of the league, a factor that makes staying healthy and being prepared to play even more important.

“We’ve got a lot of great teams in this league, a lot of teams could win, a lot of teams could lose, the best teams could lose,” Kelly said. “It’s going to be a grind every game. The first team in the conference could play the tenth team, or however that goes, and they could lose. It’s who wants it more, honestly.”

For Pettiford, he’s preparing for his first experience playing a conference schedule in college. When asked how he and the team will handle it, he also mentioned preparation.

“We know every week it’s going to be a tough game,” Pettiford said. “Every day, just have to come in ready, prepare for the next game. We have to worry about the game that’s ahead of us.”

Pettiford has been huge for Auburn this season, averaging 11.2 points per game, 3.1 assists and shooting 42.2% from 3-point range. He also seems to save his best performances for Auburn’s toughest games, scoring 21 points against Houston, 20 against Duke, 18 against Purdue and 14 versus Iowa State.

Pettiford was asked where his maturity comes from to be able to play at that level on big stages this early in his career, and the freshman from Jersey City, New Jersey, attributed it to his basketball upbringing.

“I really never played my age group growing up,” Pettiford said. “My dad always had me playing a year or two up, so I feel like just playing with the older kids and playing in a grown man league with my dad was just something that I feel like helped form in my maturity.”

Auburn’s SEC opener versus Missouri is scheduled to tip off at 3 p.m. on Saturday. It will be streaming live on SEC Network.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at [email protected]m