AUBURN | No. 11 Auburn won’t play many teams like Vermont this season, but they played one a lot like them at the end of last season and it didn’t end well.

The Tigers open the season Wednesday night against a Catamount team that reminds Bruce Pearl of the Yale squad that knocked AU out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament last March.

“Vermont is very Yale-like, which should concern us all,” said Pearl, who is entering his 11th season as Auburn’s head coach. “Vermont was ninth last year in scoring defense. Teams scored 62 points against them. They were ninth last year in not turning the ball over.

“We turned our first two exhibition opponents over enough to score 25 points per game in those games, so those points off turnovers are going to be really pretty much nonexistent, because they'll do a great job caring for the ball.”

Pearl’s scouting report proved to be spot on after Vermont opened the season Monday night turning the ball over just five times in a 67-62 win at UAB. Junior guard TJ Hurley led the way with 20 points including 4 of 8 3-pointers.

Senior Shamir Bogues added 13 points and senior TJ Long had 10.

“They'll run really good offensive stuff; hard-to-guard stuff,” said Pearl. “Got a dominating point guard in Bogues. Their bigs are under-sized, but are physical. They're almost physical to a fault. And they've got a couple of dead-eye shooters kind of, again, like Yale had. So, it'll be a real scrappy team.”

It’s the beginning of a very challenging non-conference slate that includes a trip to No. 4 Houston Saturday night, a matchup against No. 5 Iowa State to open a loaded Maui Invitational, at No. 7 Duke, Ohio State in Atlanta and No. 14 Purdue in Birmingham.

“One good thing is that this early schedule -- including even these first three games -- we're going to learn a lot about where we're at. Obviously excited about it,” said Pearl.

Tip-off at Neville Arena is scheduled for 7 p.m. CT on SECN+/ESPN+.