Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl will be the first to note Auburn’s place atop the SEC with the league’s most wins over the last six seasons. It’s not the same SEC that for decades was dominated by Kentucky. The rest of the league caught up. Auburn caught up sooner than most, and now much of the rest of the league is on the same title-contending playing field.

So Pearl believes he has to find ways to keep Auburn sticking out in a league with so much depth and talent. That means putting his team in front of a team television camera. It means finding difficult, but marquee non-conference games — even if that means traveling to South Dakota.

“People ask me why the game, why’d you take the game, why go out to South Dakota,” Pearl said Monday. “It’s real simple, just to try to stay relevant in the world of college basketball, which is harder and harder to do now.”

And the non-conference schedule Auburn created is one of the most difficult in the nation.

It begins immediately. To open the season Auburn goes to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to play No. 20 Baylor. The game will tip off at 8 p.m. Tuesday and will be broadcast on ESPN.

“It’s to stay relevant,” Pearl said at SEC Basketball Tip Off in Birmingham. “It’s to tell my kids a message, I believe in you. I don’t care who we’re playing. I don’t care. I believe in you. You came here to try to win a championship. You came here to get to a Final Four. If I don’t schedule hard, then obviously I’m concerned we’re not good enough. And we ain’t afraid.”

Scheduling duties fall on Auburn assistant coach Mike Burgomaster. His title now includes a listing as Auburn’s offensive coordinator, but doesn’t quite include his role as the master of scheduling.

He put together a non-conference schedule that included the Baylor game, a trip to New York to play Notre Dame and either Oklahoma State or St. Bonaventure, a trip to Atlanta to play Indiana, as well as hosting USC and Virginia Tech. Burgomaster also included difficult mid-major opponents including a trip to Huntsville to play UNC-Asheville and going to play a true road game at Appalachian State. Auburn will host Chattanooga and Penn which have each made the NCAA Tournament in the last five years.

“Of course I would love to play these schools,” forward Jaylin Williams said. “The competition is going to be great. I’m not familiar with who’s on the teams. But I’m gonna know when we do scouting reports. I know they’re highly ranked and very talented through their history. It’s going to be a great time.”

Pearl believes games like these are going to teach him about his team. And frankly Pearl thinks these games may not always show the best about Auburn, but instead where his team still has to grow.

The preseason games against Furman and Auburn-Montgomery didn’t test Pearl’s team as much as he’d like. And that’s including the fact that Pearl wasn’t happy with how his team played in the exhibition win on Nov. 1 against AUM.

“We’re going to get exposed,” Pearl said of opening against Baylor. “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?”

Where Auburn goes will be taking where it got exposed and attempting to figure it out against more quality opponents.

Though Auburn forward Johni Broome doesn’t really care who Auburn plays. He’s just excited to play a different team. He’ll be facing a variety of styles of teams this year with Baylor from the Big 12, Indiana from the Big 10, USC from the Pac-12 and multiple ACC teams.

Part of Broome’s thought hinges on how good the SEC is projected to be this year. Auburn’s schedule will certainly help prepare it for a potential trip to the NCAA Tournament, but SEC teams no longer need such a difficult non-conference schedule to boost their resumes because the conference itself is deep.

“It’ll be fun to play against the other conferences,” Broome said. “But the good thing about the SEC is that playing in this league prepares you for the other conferences. I feel like the SEC has a very good variety of teams. I feel like we’re one of the top conferences — or the top conference. Playing against Baylor, the ACC, teams like that, I feel like we’re prepared for them.”

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