Bruce Pearl believes Alabama is one of the three best teams in college basketball

Auburn opened its hoops season with a thrashing of Vermont on Wednesday night and after the game coach Bruce Pearl was already looking ahead, dishing some interesting comments on one of his rivals.

Following the 94-43 win, Pearl met with reporters and discussed the game.

“Well I mean obviously guys feel good about how they played and played the right way,” Bruce Pearl said. “And again, it’s all about learning. And then we’ll lock in tomorrow. We do, we focus one at a time. We did some summer preparation on everybody. Coach did a good job.”

Auburn was stifling defensively, holding Vermont to just 21.7% shooting from the 3-point line and 25.9% from the floor.

Meanwhile, the Tigers were absolutely on fire from beyond the arc, draining 16 3-points to finish 45.7% from downtown. That effort was led by Miles Kelly, who finished 7-of-9 shooting from the arc.

Where things got interesting was the post-game presser, where Bruce Pearl had some uncommon praise for chief rival Alabama.

“So we’ll put this one behind us real quickly and play what I think will probably be; to me, Houston, Duke, Alabama are three of the best teams in the country as I see it,” Bruce Pearl said.

That’s certainly lofty praise for the Crimson Tide, though perhaps not unexpected. Alabama currently checks in ranked No. 2 in the country. The Crimson Tide won its season opener 110-54 over UNC Ashveville.

The roster makeup for Alabama is outstanding, too.

Led by guard Mark Sears, the Crimson Tide have a handful of impact returning players. Latrell Wrightsell will help pace things in the backcourt with Sears.

In the frontcourt, the addition of Clifford Omoruyi should be massive, while forward Grant Nelson and forward Mouhamed Dioubate also return.

Bottom line: Bruce Pearl and Auburn know they’ll have their work cut out for them in conference play. Alabama and Auburn will meet at Alabama on Feb. 15, then at Auburn on March 8.