AUBURN | Bruce Pearl always laments his defense needing work early in the season.
But it looked to be in midseason form in the season opener Wednesday night as No. 11 Auburn forced 16 turnovers in a 94-43 win over Vermont at Neville Arena.
Senior Denver Jones, however, doesn’t expect Pearl to give them too much credit after game one, especially with a top 5 matchup coming this weekend.
“It was a lot of moments where we did breakdown on defense and coach is never satisfied,” said Jones, who had one of the Tigers’ 10 steals. “He’ll compliment us though when we do good.”
Vermont ranked 10th nationally last season averaging just 9.2 turnovers per game, and had just five in a 67-62 win at UAB Monday night.
AU was able to convert those 16 turnovers into 25 points against the Catamounts. AU also had seven blocked shots including two by Johni Broome.
“I do think we defended pretty well without fouling,” said Pearl. “Obviously Saturday at Houston is going to be a completely different matchup and different team, different size, athleticism and physicality. We’re not celebrating this. Don’t read into it too much other than we shot it really well and played pretty hard.”
Vermont shot just 25.9 percent from the floor and made 5 of 23 3-pointers. It’s the lowest field goal shooting percentage in John Becker’s 14 seasons at Vermont, which includes six NCAA Tournament appearances.
“They’re just massive and athletic and they run you off the line,” said Becker. “You can’t really take advantage of it at the rim because they have two of the best shot blockers in the country. You hope that maybe they’re not going to give the effort that they did tonight. And I think that’s one of the things that makes Coach Pearl such an incredible coach throughout his career. His guys play hard as hell on both sides of the ball.
“I’m hoping things like this can pay dividends down the road and we can learn a lot from this. We have a veteran group back that’s gone to the tournament three straight years and we’ve won eight regular season titles. We’re a proud program. So to get your ass kicked by 50, it doesn’t feel great, obviously.”
Auburn returns to action Saturday night at No. 4 Houston. Tip-off at the Toyota Center is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. CT on ESPNU.
