Pearl focuses on defense in first practice
AUBURN | Auburn men’s basketball began practice Friday afternoon and Bruce Pearl immediately started drilling his team on defense.
Practice began with two-man and three-man defensive drills and ended with a 5-on-5 defensive drill against the scout team.
“Defense is the hardest thing for young players and newcomers to learn so we're going to spend a lot of time on it and get good at it because I've got no concerns about our ability to score,” Pearl said. “Defense and first shot rebounding is going to be a challenge.”
Pearl will mix six newcomers with six veterans including senior T.J. Dunans, junior TJ Lang, sophomores Bryce Brown, Horace Spencer and New Williams, and redshirt freshman Danjel Purifoy.
Newcomers include graduate transfers Ronnie Johnson and LaRon Smith, transfer DeSean Murray, and true freshmen Mustapha Heron, Jared Harper and Anfernee McLemore.
All practiced for the first time as a full team Friday and they will hold their first scrimmage Saturday.
“I think the newcomers are good,” Pearl said. “I think they've picked up on things pretty quickly and that's important, especially the point guards to be able to pick up on what we want to do. I think they're all going to have an impact. The best part of our team right now is the fact that we've got 10 or 11 guys that can play and we will play 10 or 11 guys.”
During one drill against the scout team, Harper, Dunans, Heron, Purifoy and Spencer were with the first team while Johnson, Brown, Lang, McLemore and Smith were with the second group.
Purifoy, who had to sit out last season due to an issue with is ACT test score, says this year’s group already has good team chemistry.
“We still have some work to do, but I feel like it’s way better than last year,” Purifoy said.
Pearl was excited about the new NCAA rules that allowed preseason practice to start two weeks earlier.
“They're allowing us to work with them in the summer and the fall. It's only eight hours a week but we are so much more prepared at this time of the year,” Pearl said. “This is the first day of practice and it went for an hour and a half. How many first days of practice did you have to go hard on the 15th? You'd go three hours, you'd take a rest, you'd come back for two more, you'd double sessions.
"We don't have to do that now. As a result we're putting the kids in position to be more successful.”
Saturday’s scrimmage will be at 11:30 a.m. CT at the Auburn Arena and is open to the public. Auburn will host Div. II Montevallo in an exhibition game Nov. 4 before opening the season against North Florida Nov. 11 at the Auburn Arena.
