AUBURN | South Florida gave Auburn a tough test on Friday night. Bruce Pearl says Tuesday night's opponent, Winthrop, is even better.

The Auburn coach went down the list of what makes the Eagles so tough, including confident shooters and a young post player in Kelton Talford that finishes almost everything around the rim.

"It's going to be interesting to see how Johni and Dylan and Stretch matchup with him in there and whether they can handle him one-on-one or whether we need to come down and double," Pearl said.

Winthrop enters the matchup 2-1 with wins over Piedmont and Middle Tennessee and a loss to Penn State. Pearl loves the matchup for his team early in the season because of the challenge it brings.

"Just a really good team for this early in the year that, again, just is going to expose us," he said. "You know, which is what you want. You want to be—we'll be challenged, and it forces us to execute offensively, forces us to execute defensively and run good on our OBs and just stuff—it's a good opponent. It'll be a good test."

While Auburn's defense has been solid in the first two games – the Tigers have allowed just 111 points – it is the offense that has struggled at times. Auburn is shooting 36.6 percent from the floor, including 18 percent from beyond the three-point line. Pearl has been happy with how his team has stayed focused on the defensive side of the floor while suffering on offense.

"The defense has been great, and our kids' effort, our guys' efforts have been great," the coach said. "The effort and energy have been great. And we're gonna have to hang our hat on our defense, and our rebounding, and things like that."

Auburn and Winthrop tip off at 6 p.m. CT in Neville Arena. The game airs on SEC Network.