AUBURN | High-flying Auburn is back on track.

The 2nd-ranked Tigers bounced back from Wednesday night’s loss at No. 9 Duke with a season-high eight dunks in a 98-54 win over Richmond Sunday at Neville Arena.

Auburn improves to 8-1 on the season.

The Tigers led the entire way, out-scoring the Spiders 23-2 over the final 1:24 of the first half and 4:25 of the second to build a 37-point lead.

"We didn't turn Duke over. We kind of let Duke run their offense, and that was one thing we kind of looked back at, and it's hard to do. Easier said than done," said AU coach Bruce Pearl. "But Richmond takes good care of the basketball. They averaged 9.0 turnovers a game, and we had about that many at halftime.

"Then, on the offensive end, they were all about taking Johni (Broome) away and double-teaming the post. Johni, just — 'Give me the ball so I can throw it to a teammate. Just give me the ball so I can throw it to a teammate.' That was really pretty basketball."

AU had six players in double-figure scoring led by Miles Kelly and Tahaad Pettiford, who had 15 apiece. Kelly was 4 of 5 from 3-point range while Pettiford was 4 of 8.

AU made 13 3-pointers, the second-most this season.

Chad Baker-Mazara had 13 points, six rebounds and five assists while Broome had 11 points, five rebounds and six assists. Denver Jones added 11 points and five rebounds.

AU had 23 assists on 33 made baskets.

Jahki Howard also finished with 13 points including four dunks, playing a season high 21 minutes. The freshman had played just two minutes in the previous seven games combined after his involvement in a fight on the plane trip to Houston Nov. 8.

AU was plus-18 on rebounds and scored 18 points off 15 Richmond turnovers. The Spiders shot just 27.1 percent from the field.

"Going to practice, (Pearl) explained a lot how bad our defense was against Duke and how we could've fixed it," Pettiford. "Coming into this game, we knew Richmond was a team that liked to backdoor. They moved a lot, so we just preached that all week for practice, we just tried to make it work during the game."

Auburn returns to action Saturday in the Holiday Hoopsgiving against Ohio State. Tip-off at State Farm Arena in Atlanta is scheduled for noon CT on ESPN2.

The Buckeyes are 6-3 with a win over No. 19 Texas and losses at No. 23 Texas A&M and Maryland, and Pittsburgh at home.