The Auburn Tigers Men’s Basketball team is the representative team for Auburn University and takes part in the Southeastern Conference of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. They played their first game in 1906. The home games are held at the Auburn Arena in Auburn, which is part of the university campus.
The team has four conference regular-season championships under its name, plus two other SEC Tournament winning titles. The team made it to the NCAA Tournament a total of ten times; in 2019, they managed to get all the way to the Final Four. Eleven players from this team have been named All-Americans by the NCAA.
Auburn is also responsible for the careers of Chuck Person and Chris Morris and several others, who were part of the NBA Draft picks. Charles Barkley and Chris Porter, both from Auburn, have held the title of SEC Player of the Year. With such a long career, as it happens in sports, some traditional rivalries have appeared over the years.
The Alabama-Auburn rivalry
The Alabama-Auburn men’s basketball rivalry takes place between the aforementioned Auburn Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide. Both schools have highly regarded football programs, but the rivalry between them has extended, naturally, to basketball over the years, as they met for the first time in 1924.
In total, these two teams have met 162 times and both have various records to their name. In the All-time series, Alabama leads, with 97 wins, compared to the 65 wins held by the Tigers. Then again, the largest victory is held by Auburn, who in 1998 scored 94 to 40, so they have all the reasons to keep the rivalry as they are both worthy teams.
The Auburn-Georgia rivalry
Another southern team that proved to be a rival to the Auburn Tigers is the Georgia Bulldogs basketball team which represents the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. This is actually the first Auburn rivalry, as they first met Georgia in 1908, in Columbus, Georgia. Auburn won their very first game and they have been at each other since 1945.
In this case, Auburn tends to often dominate the Bulldogs, as Auburn leads the all-time series with 96-95, but as you can see, they still can’t completely relax, as the Bulldogs are breathing down their necks. Maybe some equipment from https://biggerbetterbeards.org will settle the score better.
The Auburn – UAB rivalry
Going from the oldest to one of the newest we have the rivalry between the Auburn Tigers and the UAB Blazer’s team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. They first met in 1982, in a match that was won by Auburn with 63 – 61. They would continue to face each other for the next 20 years until the series was stopped following the 1999 – 2000 season.
In 2015, the teams agreed to have a four-game series that, of course, led to their rivalry being reignited. Auburn is currently leading the all-time series with a score of 11-10. Despite the fact that they don’t have the same long history as they do with other teams, this rivalry is considered to be one of the most competitive and fierce in the whole of Alabama.
How these rivalries will play out in the future remains to be seen as we can really focus on one clear winner overall. The Auburn Tigers were set to be the no.2 seed in the SEC Tournament, but that didn’t go as planned as the pandemic hit, so we can only root for them to come back in their top shape when the season resumes.
