It's hardly groundbreaking news when ESPN's "College GameDay" traveling football show announces it will descend on the state of Alabama.
There have been 14 occasions in which "GameDay" has broadcast near Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, including this past November before Alabama's 46-41 loss to eventual national champion LSU. "GameDay" has ventured to Auburn nine times, with its most recent trip in 2017, when the Tigers downed Alabama 26-14 before the Crimson Tide regrouped to win that season's national crown.
Neither Alabama nor Auburn has hosted ESPN's "GameDay" basketball version until now, with the network announcing this weekend it will set up shop in Auburn for Saturday's showdown between Kentucky (15-4, 5-1 Southeastern Conference) and the Tigers (17-2, 4-2). It will be a rematch of their NCAA tournament Elite Eight pairing last March, when Auburn erased an early 11-point deficit and upset Kentucky 77-71 in overtime to reach its first Final Four.
"I'm very excited about it," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said in a news conference after the Tigers beat Iowa State 80-76 this past Saturday in the Big 12/SEC Challenge. "It's great for Auburn. It's great for our university. It's great for our community.
"All the college basketball eyes will be on Auburn, Alabama, and that's pretty cool."
The basketball "GameDay" lineup consists of host Rece Davis and analysts Jay Bilas, LaPhonso Ellis and Seth Greenberg. They will be live from Auburn Arena starting at 11 a.m. EDT, with the game set to tip off seven hours later.
Auburn senior guard Samir Doughty was asked about the looming visits from Kentucky and "GameDay" and responded, "It's just another basketball game for us." The Tigers first must play Tuesday evening at Ole Miss (10-9, 1-5), which swept Auburn and made the NCAA tournament last year but has struggled for much of this season.
Kentucky will host Vanderbilt (8-11, 0-6) on Wednesday.
The "GameDay" basketball version, which started in 2005 as a result of the success the football show was having, broadcast from Lawrence, Kansas, on Saturday, when Tennessee took the No. 3 Jayhawks to the wire before losing 74-68. This year's Big 12/SEC Challenge wound up in a 5-5 split and is now 20-20 over the past four seasons.
Kentucky has hosted the basketball "GameDay" nine times to lead all SEC teams, which comes as no surprise, and Florida is next with five. In fact, of the 16 occasions in which "GameDay" has visited an SEC campus for a head-to-head league matchup, Kentucky has been involved 14 times.
The only exceptions were when Tennessee hosted Florida in 2009 and Vanderbilt in 2011.
There have been eight Florida-Kentucky basketball games accompanied by "GameDay," which ranks second to the 13 Duke-North Carolina matchups. This week, however, it will be Kentucky and Auburn in the spotlight.
"I think Kentucky and LSU, the way it looks to me, are right now the two best teams in the league," Pearl said. "Kentucky was picked to win the league, and LSU was picked in the top four or five, so they're right where they're supposed to be. We've just got to keep getting better."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.