ÃÛÌÒÓ°ÏñAV

Nothing.

Well, the Tigers will get 100 tickets and the chance to host Arizona for free sometime next season. But no cash. Neither team will get anything except their home gate receipts, while the home team’s conference gets television rights, and it all becomes pretty much a zero-sum deal.

That’s why it’s not hard to see that this sort of old-fashioned "home-and-home" series, where teams from different conferences agree to play once at each other’s arena, could be under threat.

ÃÛÌÒÓ°ÏñAV only has two of them going this season: The Wildcats played at UConn on Nov. 19 and are scheduled to host the Huskies next season, and in the other, UA will host the Tigers on Saturday and travel to play them at Auburn next season.

Arizona will also finish up a two-year, quasi-home-and-home deal when it will face Alabama at Birmingham on Dec. 13, having already taken on the Crimson Tide in Phoenix during the 2023-24 season.

“We love playing these types of games,� UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. “I know our home fans yearn for these types of matchups. They’re just not easy to put together. In this day and age in college basketball, it's just not as easy as it would seem.

“So we’re thankful to have a willing partner in Auburn and I'm sure they're excited to return the favor to us next year.�

Maybe home-and-homes will get a boost from a new NCAA rule allowing teams to play an extra game next season, up to a maximum of 32, but that could just provide temptation to find another payday somewhere else. 

“We're processing all that stuff and figuring it out as it happens,� Lloyd said. “There's always these conversations on the side. I would love to have a few true home-and-homes if it can work out that way. But unfortunately, you don't always get what you want, and you’ve kind of got to play the hand you're dealt.�

This season, Arizona’s 11-game nonconference schedule includes the two true home-and-homes (UConn and Auburn), the quasi-home-and-home (Alabama), three neutral site games (Florida at Las Vegas, UCLA at Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome and San Diego State in Phoenix) plus seven home “buy� games in which Arizona is paying teams between $90,000-$125,000 each to appear for a one-time matchup at McKale.

The three neutral site games will pay Arizona at least $200,000 each, and none of them poses an adverse environment for the Wildcats: Their fans made up about half of the Las Vegas crowd for their game against Florida and roughly a third in Los Angeles for their game against UCLA, while UA's games in Phoenix are routinely advantageous.

Besides the money, the neutral games also give Arizona a chance to experience the same neutral or semi-neutral vibe they will be experiencing during conference and NCAA tournament games at the end of the season.

“With the way that our schedule is structured, I think coach is trying to sort of model March Madness and what that looks like, sort of teaching us how to do our best work away from home," forward/center Tobe Awaka said.

Saturday’s game might teach the Wildcats how to take advantage of a true home environment, like they might have — and need — when playing BYU, Texas Tech, Kansas or Iowa State in Big 12 games ahead at McKale.

The chance to create a big environment in a nonconference game Saturday grew out of a relationship Lloyd built with former Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl, who had taken the Tigers on an exhibition trip to Israel in 2022.

Lloyd said the two coaches talked about the experience, and the Wildcats took a similar trip to Israel in August 2023. Later, Lloyd heard from Pearl again, this time asking about a potential home-and-home.

The two sides agreed last February to start the series this season at McKale and finish it at a date to be determined, probably next season, at Auburn.

“Whenever you have a program like Auburn reaching out to you, willing to start a home and home at your place, that's a good starting point for a conversation,� Lloyd said. “That's where it all started.�

After Bruce Pearl retired in September, the deal fell into his son’s lap along with the rest of the program.

But new Tigers head coach Steven Pearl said he is for mixing up neutral site events with big home games that include traditional home-and-home deals and inter-conference series such as the ACC/SEC Challenge that had N.C. State playing at Auburn on Wednesday.

“I think having a healthy balance of the two is really good because you're going to have these MTE events and these NIL events where you can obviously help your program make some money,� Steven Pearl said. “But major conference teams being able to play against other major conference teams, powerful versus powerful on home court ... you're having to play a true road game against a quality opponent.

"The stands are packed and it’s just like conference play, but in November and December. I think people really love watching those types of matchups over something that's going on in Vegas or Maui, you know what I mean?�

Awaka sounded like he does.

"Whenever you can have a big time opponent here in McKale, with that environment, sort of the home crowd behind you," he said, "it's moments like that that you don't want to pass up.�