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College basketball season is right around the corner. Both Alabama and Auburn are set for exhibition action this month, and the Tide and Tigers really started the year at SEC media days in Mountain Brook. These teams enter 2024 with high expectations, especially Alabama, which is No. 2 in the preseason AP poll and predicted to win the SEC in the preseason media poll. Led by returners Mark Sears, Latrell Wrightsell Jr. and Grant Nelson, head coach Nate Oats has a squad poised to improve on last year’s Final Four trip. This year’s team, though, isn’t focused on what happened last season.”I don’t really want to talk about that much with the team. I kind of told them we had the celebration Friday where we raised the banner and gave out the rings. The issue is eight out of our 13 scholarship guys weren’t here last year. So, and that was last year, it’s kind of old news. It’s great for the program, for the fans, for the university to be able to celebrate it, but it has nothing to do with what we’ve got going on this year,” Oats said. As for Auburn, the Tigers were picked to finish second in the SEC and are No. 11 in the preseason AP poll. Head coach Bruce Pearl has last year’s leading scorer back in Johni Broome, who was picked for preseason First Team All-SEC. Broome and the Tigers will be tested early in a schedule that features No. 4 Houston, No. 5 Iowa State and No. 7 Duke, among others. That schedule is just a product of what Pearl has built at Auburn and where this program looks to be. “You better be careful what you wish for, and we’ve got all that we can handle for sure, but it’s what we’ve built; it’s why we worked. It’s easier to get someplace than it is to stay someplace, so to try to stay competitive at Auburn has been a great, great challenge and we’ve managed to win four championships in the last seven years. Two regular season and two tournament with four different teams. Sometimes you got to act like you belong,” Pearl said. The Tide will take the floor for the first time this year in exhibition action against Wake Forest in Birmingham at Boutwell Auditorium. The regular season begins for Alabama on Nov. 4 at home against UNC Asheville. Auburn has its first exhibition game Oct. 27 in Greenville, South Carolina, against Furman. The Tigers’ first regular season game is Nov. 6 against Vermont at Neville Arena.