Auburn basketball to host Virginia Tech in first ACC/SEC Challenge
AUBURN — Auburn basketball will host Virginia Tech in the first ACC/SEC Challenge in Wednesday, November 29 inside Neville Arena. The game will tip at 8:15 pm CT with the televised network being announced at a later date.
The Tigers have a 5-1 all-time record against the Hokies. The last game between the two was a 10-point win for Auburn on a neutral court in Puerto Rico during the 1999-2000 season. The other four contests took place in 1927, 1961, 1967, 1973 and 1974.
Auburn finished seventh in the SEC last season with a 10-8 conference record, eventually falling in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Virginia Tech finished 11th in the ACC last season with a 8-12 conference record. The Hokies lost their first-round game in the NIT at Cincinnati.
The other confirmed matchups are: Duke at Arkansas, Mississippi State at Georgia Tech, NC State at Ole Miss, LSU at Syracuse, Texas A&M at Virginia, Boston College at Vanderbilt, Tennessee at North Carolina, Notre Dame at South Carolina, Missouri at Pitt, Florida at Wake Forest, and Miami at Kentucky.
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The two conferences and ESPN announced in November the formation of the Challenge for men’s and women’s basketball, starting during the 2023-24 season.
The introduction of the ACC/SEC Challenge marks the end of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge after 23 years and the end of the SEC/Big Ten Challenge that began in 2013. The ACC/SEC Challenge will feature 28 games across men’s and women’s basketball until 2025-26, when Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC and the event expands to 30 games.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement in November, “We are excited women’s and men’s basketball student-athletes will have the opportunity to compete with their colleagues from the ACC as we initiate a new Basketball Challenge experience. I appreciate the collaboration of Jim Phillips and the ACC members, along with our broadcast partner ESPN, to make possible the SEC/ACC Basketball Challenge which will provide our fans with exciting basketball early in the 2023-24 season. I also thank the Big 12 for the many great challenge games we experienced together in past years.”
The SEC/Big 12 Challenge ran for 10 years. The SEC won three times, the Big 12 won five, with two ties.
The Tigers’ history on the SEC/Big 12 Challenge led to losses over Iowa State, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Baylor and West Virginia, and wins over TCU, Iowa State and Oklahoma. Auburn didn’t participate in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, the two seasons in which Tigers won the SEC regular season title, and then the SEC tournament title on their way to the Final Four.
