Hello! We're about a month away from Auburn's season, so we'll hear from Bruce Pearl ahead of Auburn's first day of practice/pro day.
Refresh for updates:
Refresh for updates:
- He opened up by talking about how he's still getting used to the earlier start to practices, but that he likes it better now. Agreed!
- "This first day of practice does not feel like the first day of practice."
- "I know less about this team than many of the teams I've coached. And I only brought in two freshmen and three transfers. The combination of transfer portal and NIL in power conferences -- you're looking at 4-5 guys transferring per year."
- Pearl added that Auburn is averaging about two transfers a year because guys love Auburn
- Denver Jones is going to play 1 & 2
- Johni Broome is going to play 4 & 5
- the initial plan was for Tahaad Pettiford to play solely off ball, but he's shown that he can run point along with 2 & 3
- "I'm going to learn a lot more about my team in the next few weeks."
- He's asked about the non-con schedule -- mentioned that they scheduled teams like USC and Notre Dame that were great when they scheduled them, but just weren't last year. Mentioned that they wanted to play a tougher schedule to help with the analytics.
- "I don't know if we can recruit like a top 10 program. I don't know if we can finish like one. But I can schedule like one because I can control that."
- On Miles Kelly: "He was arguably Georgia Tech's best player last year... having to play him 32+ minutes, and now he's going to come here... he won't play 32 minutes. He'll be able to affect the game in more ways."
- Pearl said that Johni Broome could start at 4, but it just depends on the others at 4 & 5 (i.e. Dylan, Chaney, Turtle, C-Mo). Mentioned that this will all be figured out over the next month.
- Pearl mentioned that Broome is practicing at a more "consistent clip." Also said that Chaney Johnson has had a great fall and that we'll see the improvement from last year to this year.
- "Chad Baker continues to show, at times, greatness."
- "We're hard to score on in practice. We've got great size at the rim. We've got great length on the perimeter." Pearl mentioned that he's having a hard time to gauge his team because of how hard it has been to score and that he needs to see his guys play against another team.
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