Denver Jones was having one of the games where nothing was going his way. The Auburn guard went 0-for-8 from the field, including 0-for-5 from behind the three-point line, with four turnovers in 32 minutes in the Tigers' 53-51 victory over Tennessee.

Jones kept on playing clutch defense, though.

"He wants to be effective offensively, and so it bothers him when he's not," Bruce Pearl said. "I mean, it really bothers him. Now, it hasn't affected his defense, but we need for Denver to take better care of the basketball and make more shots."

As his coach pointed out, Jones arrived at Auburn known for his offense. In his sophomore season at Florida International, the New Market, Ala., native averaged 20.1 points per game, earning first-team all-conference honors in Conference USA. That was when he was averaging 33.5 minutes on the floor each outing. Jones is playing 26.9 minutes per game this year with the Tigers and averaging 10.1 points while shooting 39.8 percent from beyond the arc.

'You gotta understand that his whole life, he's been a better offensive player than a defensive player, Pearl said. "So his whole life, he's graded himself and evaluated himself as to what kind of an offensive game he had or has. So he wants to score."

But with so many weapons in Auburn's starting lineup and coming off the bench, his points were obviously going to go down. It's the same thing each transfer has to accept when joining Pearl's squad. But it's his impact on defense that has impressed his coach the most.

"We've talked about the fact that Denver is one of the best defensive guards in the game and what an incredible job he does," Pearl said.