Takeaways: Bruce Pearl goes in-depth on newcomers, team chemistry, schedule and much more as basketball practice begins

It's not even October, but the next season of Auburn basketball has arrived. Bruce Pearl met the media on Tuesday as practice officially began, and the roster has undergone a renovation much like what it did prior to Auburn's regular season championship two seasons ago. Then, it was Walker Kessler, Zep Jasper, KD Johnson and Wendell Green Jr. arriving, joined by freshman Jabari Smith Jr. Now, it's Denver Jones, Chaney Johnson, Chad Baker-Mazara and Addarin Scott arriving, joined by freshman Aden Holloway. "This is the best time of the year for us because we’re trying to put together what we think we have," Pearl said. "It’s time to put it all together and we have a month before we start playing someone else. The guys are ready to play someone else. There’s still so many things about what we do offensively and defensively that we need to put in to get ourselves obviously ready." Last year's team finished 21-13, with a first-round loss in the SEC Tournament and a second-round loss in the NCAA Tournament to top-seeded Houston. Over the last six seasons, the Auburn program has reached a ranking of No. 11 or better, with four or the last six seasons seeing the Tigers ranked inside the top 10. In the same time period, Auburn has more NCAA Tournament wins than everyone in the SEC other than Arkansas, more championships than everyone other than Alabama, and more overall wins than everyone other than Tennessee. "Our goal is to come back and say over the last seven years, we’ve had the best program in the league," Pearl said. "That’s going to be challenging because there’s some people right behind us. That’s kind of what my goal is, and obviously to compete for championships." Here's much more from Pearl from our media session on Tuesday.