The No. 11 Auburn Tigers opened the season with a sound 94-43 win over Vermont on Wednesday night, but head coach Bruce Pearl and the Tigers will quickly turn the page as they prepare for a matchup with No. 4 Houston on Saturday.
Here is everything Pearl said prior to the game:
Opening Statement
“So, this begins the beginning of what is four, and what could potentially be six games for us in the non-conference against a top-16 team. And I was worried about Vermont - I should have been. Houston, there coached. Kelvin Sampson, his teams have played the same way for a long time. They play hard, physical, great rebounding team. Great defensive team. They win every 50-50 ball. They play the right way. They play as a team, a culture there for sure. With the exception of one player, they bring pretty much everybody else back and they replaced that kid with Miles Uzon, point guard from Oklahoma. So, we’re going to get exposed. I think whoever wins the rebounding battle is going to be important. Both teams have really demonstrated they’re both really solid defensively. The top two teams in the Kenpom ratings. These are two of the top defensive teams in the country. So, it could be first to 50.”
One thing that stood out in win over Vermont
“I don’t know how we could have shot it any better. And then to see on three separate occasions, Denver Jones, Chad Baker - (Mazara) and Miles Kelly all have pretty hot runs where they played really well and made some incredible shots. But it was also good to see Chaney Johnson have a period of some real dominant play, both inside and out. Dylan was great defensively. JohnieI was really good offensively and played very unselfishly. Knew he was going to get doubled some. Was as excited to not be the leading scorer, because of the way they defended us, and watched some of his teammates do it - which I was not surprised - but really pleased. I thought we played hard for 40 minutes. We defended and didn’t foul.”
On Kelvins Sampson's defenses
“Ball screens. They put two on the ball and make it really hard. But they'll also adjust that. We start getting our bigs out and bother them. They'll make those adjustments. Occurrence, physical, get through screens, don't let you - they're a really brilliant ball screen defensive team. They’ve got great help-side. They make plays out of ball screens. I listened to Bill Rafferty call the Duke game from last year. Bill Simon - ‘If I was Duke, I would never run a ball screen.’ Well, we're a pretty heavy ball screen offensive team, so that's just not going to happen, but that's how good they are in ball screen defense.”
On matching up with Houston
“Well, one of the things about Houston is they've got two front line - their four and five are both inside players, clearly inside players that'll play 25 or 30 minutes together. Then they'll play about 10 minutes of small ball. And so, your traditional four man, for many teams have a hard time with Houston because their four man is a monster - Roberts is a powerful player. So we'll play some big- big as we have. If we still have foul trouble, it may be played a little bit more.”
On the election and his political beliefs and the impact it may have on the program
“Yeah, I'm glad it's basketball season, right? And I'm sure people that follow me on Twitter are glad it's basketball season. I spend more time on issues and policy than I do politics really. Sometimes they do get political. It's more of a policy issue, and obviously, with Israel being at war and the tremendous increase in rise in anti-semitism, public display of anti semitism in this country. And that sort of led up to a couple of Holocaust that have taken place, one back in Germany and the other one on October 7. a year-and-a-half ago. And so Dr. King said, ‘silence is complicity.’ I’m not going to be silent. And as an American, Jewish person that is in the public eye, I feel like it's my responsibility to try to speak the truth. Know my Bible, know my history. Because we do have a problem with education in this country. And so, as a teacher and a coach, I do spend most of my time just trying to provide accurate information so people can have a better understanding of the situation.”
On the tough non-conference schedule coming up
“I think regardless of the outcome, playing the number one or two team on the road and a team that is physical and old as Houston, where is it going to get hard? Maybe at Duke, maybe at Alabama, you know? If we're fortunate enough to make the NCAA Tournament and I'm always gonna put it like that for real, what opponent will we play in a neutral site that’s gonna be more difficult than at Houston, at Duke or at Alabama. I can't think of any. So, if we can have some success, or we can even survive, that's going to be good for the development team. And more than anything, it's just the idea, the fact that Kelvin Sampson and Houston thought this would be a good game and a series, where they were willing to come here, have us go to Houston and come back to Birmingham. The same thing with Purdue. The same thing Ohio State being willing to come to Atlanta and play us there. Same thing with being invited to Maui. I think the other thing too is we're gonna have thousands of people at the Houston game, thousands. I don't think we're smart enough to, back when we scheduled the game, realize that this was a bye weekend for our football team. Maybe we were, but our fans are traveling, so we'll have witnesses down there, which is a good thing.”
On Chaney Johnson’s development from a year ago
“When we watched Chaney from a year ago, back early, like, November, December, early January, I’m like ‘who's that skinny kid,’ right? And then you watch him now, and obviously he's done a great job, coach Davis getting his body so powerful, and we will need all that and then some against Houston. So, Chaney's playing with confidence. He plays with great efficiency, and he is our hardest worker. It's hard when you get a team of really hard workers, it's hard to separate one, it really is. Because Johni is one of our hardest workers. The guys who get a lot of shots are in the gym getting shots all the time. Chaney’s Chaney.”
On preparing for Houston while still giving Vermont attention
“During the course of the summer, we went against almost all of our non-conference, at some point, for two or three days. And the idea would be to see how we guard certain actions, or what’s some things that we do. Also, just in your preseason planning. Putting in your zone offenses against different looks. Put in your ball screen offense against different ball screen defenses. You eventually get to everything by the time we go through these scouts. But then, specifically, we worked on Houston at some point for two or three days this summer. We did the same thing with Vermont. But I think our players are intelligent, and they also would recognize - we finished the Florida Atlantic game on Friday night, and we came back in Saturday, and I started working on Houston, because we got a big game against Houston the following Saturday. And then, let's start working on Vermont Monday. I think you’re allowed to get a team that’s going to take somebody for granted. I think the fact that UAB lost to them, our guys respected that, recognized that. Outcomes have a lot to do with players. I honestly think Vermont beating UAB hurt their chance of beating us because they went over there, they had success. They thought perhaps it was going to be like UAB and it wasn’t. It was more intense, and it was a more difficult challenge. And we respected Vermont. That’s the biggest thing. That’s where you get good senior leadership from our guys. They take it one at a time. We're gonna be fine in one-day preparation for Houston. We'll be fine because at the end of the day, it's gonna come down, take care of the ball, keeping them off the boards. Then hit some shots. You do those three things - now we're gonna spend a lot more time studying film and breaking everything down. And we're going to study. Rebound the basketball, take care of the basketball, make a few shots and we’ll have a chance to win.”
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