Bruce Pearl insists fans 'don't read into' 51-point win too much

Auburn flexed its muscles in its season opener against Vermont on Wednesday. The Tigers pounded the Catamounts 94-43 as 14 players saw action in the dominant win.

Auburn led 46-21 at the half and controlled the game throughout. Miles Kelly came off the bench to lead Auburn with 21 points, while four other players also scored in double figures.

Despite the impressive showing, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl was tempering expectations in his postgame press conference and warned that the games will be much tougher moving forward.

“We’re not celebrating this,” Bruce Pearl said. “Don’t read into it too much other than we shot it really well and played pretty hard.”

The games are getting more difficult in a hurry as Auburn will travel to face Houston on Saturday. The Cougars are currently ranked in the top 5 and are coming off of a 57-point win of their own in their opener against Jackson State.

Bruce Pearl is well aware that his team will have to adjust to facing a different level of competition on Saturday after going up against an overmatched Vermont squad on Wednesday.

“Obviously Saturday at Houston’s going to be a completely different matchup, different team, different size, athleticism and physicality,” Pearl said.

While it is tough to take too much away from the Auburn win, Pearl did like the way his group played defensively. In particular, he was pleased that the Tigers didn’t foul. Auburn was called for only 15 fouls in the game, and Vermont shot just 11 free throws.

“The best thing about it is I thought we guarded without fouling,” Bearl said. “I thought that was so important. Now we had a Final 4 officiating crew. Two of the guys out there – Terry Oglesby and Pat Adams – were both in the Final 4 last year. So a great, great crew and I do think we defended pretty well without fouling.”

Auburn is coming off of a really good 2023-24 season, although the Tigers were upset in the first round by Yale. Pearl has a group that is motivated to get back to the NCAA Tournament and make some noise this time around.