SE Louisiana at Auburn
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
8:00 PM ET, Neville Arena
Auburn is a 26.5-point favorite over SE Louisiana with the total at 151.5. My play is Under 151.5.
Two rosters full of new faces, one basketball, and 40 minutes to figure out who’s supposed to be where. That’s the real story of opening night on the Plains. Auburn brought in 11 new players this offseason. SE Louisiana brought in 14, and only two Lions are back from last year. Everybody wants to bet the blowout or fade it. I’d rather bet on the mess.
Auburn can score. Ask anybody. Then ask about the defense.
Steven Pearl’s second season starts with a chip on the shoulder. Last year’s 22-16 team snapped a run of four straight NCAA Tournament trips, then salvaged things by winning the program’s first NIT title. The backcourt that carried that offense is back. Kevin Overton shot 41.3% from three last season and averaged 20.3 points across three exhibitions this fall. Tahaad Pettiford handed out 145 assists. This was a top-15 offense on KenPom last year, and nobody expects that to change.
The defense is the problem child. Auburn gave up 78.8 points a game last season, 310th in the country. Pearl knows it: “Biggest thing for us is just, defensively, continuing to turn the corner and be disruptive and make guys have to make tough, difficult, contested 2s.” The new answer is size. Seven-footers Bukky Oboye (a Santa Clara transfer) and Narcisse Ngoy (from France) make their regular-season debuts tonight, and a team that finally has real rim protection is a lot harder to score on at the basket.
Hammond’s new-look Lions don’t run
SE Louisiana is the perfect partner for a slow night. David Kiefer’s teams grind. Last season the Lions played at one of the slowest paces in the country (321st in possessions per game) and scored just 65 points a night. Their trips to SEC gyms went about how you’d expect: none of their three SEC games last season got them past 68 points.
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This year’s roster is mostly brand new: 12 transfers, four of them from Bryant, who followed associate head coach Bruce Shingler to Hammond. Quincy Allen (9.8 points and 1.6 blocks a game at Bryant last season) and Army transfer Jackson Furman (8.9 points) give the Lions some scoring, but this is a group playing its first real game together, on the road, in front of the Jungle. Expect plenty of long, rushed possessions that end in bad shots.
Auburn isn’t exactly a finished product either. The Tigers went 1-2 in exhibitions, and al.com described sloppy stretches against Samford, with turnovers and empty possessions. They also launched 83 threes in their first two exhibitions. Firing that many threes before the offense has settled tends to produce long misses and dry spells, not 95-point nights. Mantas Rubštavičius, one of the shooters Auburn was counting on, has been ruled ineligible, and Owen Freeman missed the exhibitions with an injury.
The case against me
Auburn’s defense might not have changed at all. Samford put up 44 points on the Tigers in the second half of that final exhibition, and if SE Louisiana’s guards get downhill, Auburn could score 90 or more while the Lions pile up 65. A late run of free throws with the backups on the floor could also push this over. Neither team has played a real game yet, so this read leans heavily on last season’s numbers.
Still, I’m counting on one team that plays slow and one that’s still learning to play together. Auburn wins easily and keeps its 67-game home nonconference winning streak alive, but the score ends up lower than the total expects.
Projected score: Auburn 86, SE Louisiana 60
The Pick: Under 151.5 (-110)
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