One of the best matchups in week 1 of the college basketball season will feature the Auburn Tigers playing the Baylor Bears in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at the Sanford Pentagon with the game scheduled to tip off at 9:00 PM ET on Tuesday night and will air on ESPN.

The Auburn Tigers were one of the better teams in the SEC Conference last season as they finished with a regular season record of 21-13 and had a conference record of 10-8 and also won the Cancun Challenge in the regular season, however, they struggled at the end of the regular season going 4-6 in their last ten games of the regular season and were eliminated early in the SEC Tournament by the Arkansas Razorbacks in the 2^nd round by a score of 73-76. Auburn did qualify for the NCAA Tournament last season and won in the 1^st round against the Iowa Hawkeyes by a score of 83-75 before losing in the 2^nd round of the NCAA tournament against the Houston Cougars by a score of 64-81. Bruce Pearl is entering his 10^th season as the head coach of the Auburn Tigers and the Tigers project to be one of the better teams in the SEC again this year as they are projected to be the 6^th best team in the conference behind the Kentucky Wildcats, Tennessee Volunteers, Arkansas Razorbacks, Alabama Crimson Tide, and the Texas A&M Aggies as they are +1400 to win the conference this year.

Baylor enters this game ranked 20^th in the AP Poll and 17^th in the Coaches Poll after finishing last season with a record of 23-11 and a Big 12 record of 11-7 which led to a 4^th-place finish in the conference during the regular season. The Bears were eliminated in the Quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament against the Iowa State Cyclones by a score of 72-78 and qualified for the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team while they won in their 1^st round matchup of the NCAA Tournament against the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos they didn’t advance to the Sweet 16 as they lost in the 2^nd round of the tournament against the Creighton Jays by a score of 76-85. This season the Baylor Bears are projected to be one of the best teams in the Big 12 again as they have the 4^th best odds to win the conference behind the Kansas Jayhawks, Houston Cougars, and Texas Longhorns as they are +650 to win the Big 12 this season.

BookMaker has the Baylor Bears listed as 2-point favorites against the Auburn Tigers on Tuesday night. Baylor has won the last two games in the series and has won by an average margin of 7 points per game in those meetings with the last matchup occurring in 2021 in which the Bears defeated the Tigers at home by a score of 84-72. 

Both teams are projected to be in the top half of their respective conferences and should be tournament teams when the NCAA Tournament starts in March. However, Baylor is the slightly better team this season and although they failed to cover the spread in the last meeting, the Bears still won the matchup by 12 points two seasons ago. I look for the Bears to get the win in this meeting as well which is why I am taking the moneyline for the Baylor Bears at -135 when they play the Auburn Tigers on Tuesday night.