Auburn has the No. 3 adjusted defensive efficiency in the country, per KenPom. That was on display Wednesday night.

Auburn beat Vanderbilt 81-54 Wednesday night and held the Commodores to 27 percent shooting from the field and 23 percent from deep.

"Coach always talks about defensive rebounding," said Johni Broome. "And you hold a team to 27% shooting, your chances of winning is pretty high. We take pride in our defense."

Simply put, the Commodores couldn't get anything going no matter what they tried. On the night, Vanderbilt averaged just 0.659 points per possession which is 0.2 ppp under its average.

The Commodores had a small amount of success in transition, but they were locked down in the half-court as Auburn held Vanderbilt to 0.618 ppp in half-court settings on 68 possessions, working out to just 42 points total.

"Vanderbilt is a good team, really good offensively," said coach Bruce Pearl. "I thought we just kind of wore them down. I thought our half-court defense was outstanding."

On the night, Auburn blocked seven shots with five coming from Broome alone. He has 13 blocks in the Tigers' last three games.

"Johni, again, this is three straight where Johni has been dominant," Pearl said.

Heading into the night, Vanderbilt's guard duo of Tyrin Lawrence and Ezra Manjon combined to average 29.4 points per game. Against the Tigers, they combined for 17 points on 3-of-19 shooting.

Shutting down opponents' leading scorers has been a theme all season for Auburn. Pearl knows how important that is and he also knows that it's important that his guards keep that up.

"As I look at anything as we move forward, it's, 'Will our guards continue to guard like that,'" Pearl said. "Will Aden (Holloway) and Tre (Donaldson) and K.D. (Johnson) and Denver (Jones) and Lior (Berman) and Chad (Baker-Mazara) and Chris (Moore) be able to guard night in and night out against what they're going to be going up against for the next 11 games?"