AUBURN — Coming off an SEC Tournament Championship and a swift exit in the NCAA Tournament, Bruce Pearl's Auburn Tigers will open the 2024-2025 season on Wednesday night against Vermont in Neville Arena.
Check out everything Pearl had to say ahead of the matchup:
Opening Statement
"So, Vermont is very Yale-like which should concern us all. We'll learn more after they play UAB tonight, but John Becker is the coach of Vermont. He's got a great reputation back East. You know, one of the best mid major coaches in the country. Been doing it a long time. Vermont was ninth last year in scoring defense. Teams scored 62 points against them. They were ninth last year in not turning the ball over. We turned our first two exhibition opponents over enough to score 25 points per game in those games. So, those those points off turnovers are going to be really, pretty much non-existent because they do a great job caring for the ball. They're picked to win their league. They've been picked to win the league eight out of last 10 years. They've got chance to 'four-peat', which has never happened in that league before this year. So, we knew that this was going to be a game against the field from the very beginning. They'll run really good offensive stuff, you know, hard to guard stuff. Got a dominating point guard in Bogues. Their bigs are undersized, but are physical. They're almost physical to a fault. They've got a couple of dead-eye shooters, kind of like, again, like Yale had. So it'll be a really scrappy. Real scrappy team. I would expect a very close game tonight up in Birmingham, and so we're excited about getting started."
On what he's looking for defensively
"We've got to continue to do a better job of defending without fouling, being aggressive without fouling, because of - this group of guys at Vermont have been together a long time. They work well together. And if you overplay things too much, they'll beat you back door. And they've got their bigs that can shoot it a little bit too. So, you've got to be concerned about that. They're an excellent ball screen defensive team, and ball screen offense is important to us. I'd like to, you know, obviously, see us continue to grow defensively. Thought we rebounded the ball extremely well the last couple of games. Our size, commitment to it. And again, we're gonna have to - personnel is gonna be important in this game. So, paying attention to the personnel. They're a little bit more like Furman than, you know, obviously Florida, Atlantic. So, completely different opponent than we played on Friday night."
On Tahaad Pettiford's early dismissal on Friday
"He'll be alright. He should be fine, just tweaked his ankle a little bit."
On Miles Kelly's performance against FAU,
"I thought Miles probably exceeded my expectations a little bit, just because he'd only been to one contact practice, and then he played. Obviously got a little bit of rust. But you know, shot it really well and rebounded it really well. He's got that length that we now have at that position. We can - our guards all play big. And I think that help can really help us defensively and rebounding wise."
On Vermont
"I think the scouting report is important. I mean, Long can really shoot it from a long way, and really quickly. Mogues is a dominating point guard in there. The big kids are tough matchups. So, it'll be a an important game, important scout for our guys to play, you know, to be able to lock into a really different scout. Unique, unique abilities."
On Chad Baker-Mazara and team meshing together
"We're better with Chad Baker on the floor.His plus-minus against Furman was +28. And even though he didn't shoot it well from the perimeter, obviously did a great job. Six assists and one turnover. And was really, really good off-the-ball defensively. I think the guys are getting used to again, playing together. Playing 10 guys, double-digit minutes is not what they're all used to. So, getting into a rhythm pretty quickly when they come off the bench, I think it is important. And just figuring out a way to continue to play well together."
On Johni Broome's three-point shot
"There's a few things that we can do to take advantage of the fact that the big will leave him a little bit at the perimeter. And it's about Johni making good decisions about when shoots those shots. Again, this game is going to be a third-fewer possessions than we had the other night. So we're going to have to take good shots. It won't be quite as much freedom."
On JP Pegues' performance against FAU, and moving forward
Yeah, I thought JP, played really well. Shot it well. Played with confidence. Was solid defensively. I just thought he played really well. And, you know, the the issue would be - we were excited about playing Melton Scholars exhibition game. We didn't treat like an exhibition game. We were pretty ready. You know, Florida, Atlantic was an NCAA Tournament team a year ago. They're pretty fired up. And so, I don't want an emotional let down. In other words, when there's no disguising the fact that we played well, we played really well. And, to me, I wish we hadn't played quite so well. And so that way we can try to play better against - it's going to be hard to play better than we did. It's going to be. And again, it's just going to be so different against Vermont."
On getting the season started
"We're gonna find out where we're at. One good thing is, is this early schedule -including these first three games - we're gonna learn a lot about where we're at. And so obviously, excited about it. I was happy for the kids Friday night that they got to play in front of a sell-out crowd and in front of against a pretty good team and play so well. I just don't imagine the energy - I want the same energy in the building as Friday night - but Friday night before a Saturday football game, you know, there was a lot of energy in the building. And we're going to have to bring that. We're gonna have to bring some of that energy, maybe ourselves. I hope our fans and the band and - I'll put a shoutout to our fans, that 'let's treat this one like it's the opener, not Friday night.'"
Tipoff for Wednesday is set for 7 p.m. CT and will be streamed on SECN+
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