AUBURN | In the last five seasons at Auburn, Bruce Pearl has won two regular season SEC Championships and one SEC Tournament championship.

He’s led AU to the Final Four and had four first round NBA Draft picks.

Pearl has transformed the Tigers into a national power, but it’s taking a while for those outside Auburn to fully catch on.

AU was voted 15th in the preseason AP Top 25. Not bad but still behind three other SEC teams: No. 4 Kentucky, No. 10 Arkansas and No. 11 Tennessee.

For his sake, Pearl welcomes not having too high of expectations put on his program heading into the season.

“I've always been better as the underdog,” said Pearl. “I remember in 2018, they picked us -- CBS had picked us to go 4-14 in the SEC, and we opened up at Tennessee on the road, and Tennessee was a team that was going to factor for the championship. Somehow I got 4-14 up on the scoreboard, and I talked about that.

“I thought we were -- I did think we were better than that. That team I think went 14-4 and won the regular season championship, picked almost last. So I'm way more comfortable in that role.”

On Wednesday, it was announced that Auburn was picked to finish fourth in the SEC and didn’t land one player on the All-SEC first or second team.

A year ago, the Tigers were picked to finish fifth and ended up winning their second SEC regular season title in five years.

“I saw the way it was ranked out, and I thought it was pretty close. I thought we were somewhere between 4 and 7 with a high being 4, and I think that's what you'll see,” said Pearl. “You're in the top seven teams in our league, you've got a chance to be in the top 30 teams in the country. When we were trying to develop the program and grow the program, the rankings mattered in recruiting. There's so many other factors in recruiting right now, rankings don't matter nearly as much.

“You look at it, and the key is are we good enough Sunday to win against an opponent, and from that point forward, are we going to continue to get better. If we do, we've got a chance.”

Auburn will play UAB in a private scrimmage Sunday and UAH in an exhibition game Nov. 2. The Tigers open the season against George Mason Nov. 7 at Neville Arena.