The Auburn men’s basketball team will close out 2025 with its final non-conference game of the season when the Tigers host Queens at Neville Arena on Monday night.

The Tigers will look to end their difficult non-conference slate on a high note after dropping four games to top-10 opponents in November and December.  The Tigers, who currently hold an 8-4 record this season, have played seven power-conference opponents so far this season.

The difficult schedule playing against elite competition and playing away from home should help prepare the Tigers for another challenging conference slate, which begins in January.

“We’ve played seven games against high-major opponents,” said Auburn head coach Steven Pearl. “We go 3-4 in those games. We’ve played 12 games so far; we’ve played seven games away from home in neutrals or road environments. There aren’t 10 teams who have a better record than us with the schedule we’ve played. Maybe five, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen in the landscape.”

Most recently, the Tigers suffered an 88-60 defeat to No. 6 Purdue, the third loss of 25 or more points for Auburn this season and its most in a season since the 2015-16 team.

In addition to the lopsided defeat, the Tigers had injury trouble throughout the game, with Tahaad Pettiford rolling his ankle after stepping on a teammate’s foot in the second half. Pettiford left the game and did not return following his injury.

Kevin Overton led the Tigers against Boilermakers, scoring 22 points in the game while going 8-of-18 from the field and 4-of-11 from 3-point range. Outside of Overton, offense was tough to come by for the Tigers as they shot just 36.2 percent from the field and 28 percent from behind the arc.

“Our guys battled, our effort was there,” Pearl said. “We needed some more step-up from a few guys. (Overton) stepped up, took some really hard coaching this week and he responded. He flew around, played really hard. That’s a really good team in a tough environment. For us to be competitive in these games, we’ve got to make shots and we didn’t do that tonight.”

Queens comes into Neville Arena with a 5-7 record, though the Royals have already played some difficult competition. Queens already has games against Villanova, Virginia, Wake Forest and Arkansas under its belt, losing all four of those games by double digits.

With a win, Auburn will conclude another undefeated home non-conference schedule. The Tigers have not lost to a non-conference opponent at Neville Arena since Jan. 30, 2016, against Oklahoma State. Auburn also  has not lost a “buy game” since Nov. 15, 2013, against Northwestern State in Tony Barbee’s final season as the Tigers’ coach.

It will be a late night at Neville Arena as the tipoff is set for 9 p.m. on Monday. The game will be televised on the SEC Network as Auburn concludes the non-conference portion of its season. Following the game, the Tigers begin their run of 18-straight conference games, starting with a trip to Georgia on Saturday, Jan. 3.