Auburn lost key contributors Bryce Brown, Jared Harper and Chuma Okeke to the NBA, while Malik Dunbar and Horace Spencer now both play overseas. Brown, Harper and Okeke led Auburn in scoring last season with averages of 15.9, 15.3 and 12 respectively.
Auburn’s roster now consists of eight freshman, five sophomores and seven seniors. The adjustments will not only be learning not only how the game is different from high school to college; the team will also have to learn how to work together before heading into SEC play.
While Auburn will have its first chance to play in front of the home crowd on Friday, but the Tigers recently were able to scrimmage against Troy University.
Bruce Pearl saw it the scrimmage as a good way to not only get ready for Friday but also for the Sun Belt competition that Auburn is set to face later in the season.
“So just to provide perspective, we had a very competitive scrimmage against Troy, and they’re picked in the lower half of their league, the Sun Belt,” Pearl said. “We’ve got two games against Sun Belt opponents, Georgia Southern and South Alabama, and those guys are picked 1-2. So, each week as we go through things, we’re just going to have to continue to grow. I thought the effort was really good, so there was nothing wrong with our effort, but we just lacked for execution, specifically on the offensive end.”
A combination of a young team and losing five players to either the NBA or playing overseas, Auburn is expecting to struggle at first figuring out it's play styles from player to player and how everything meshes together.
“I think this is a team that will get better throughout the season, because it was our first game as a team against an opponent, Pearl said. “Like, the first time. You think about, again, even the last few years, if you’ve got 30-something games under your belt, you come back for your sophomore year, then you’ve got 60 games under your belt. That was our first game. Friday night will be our second game.”
Auburn’s first game that fans can attend will be an exhibition against Eckerd on Friday. The game will start 30 minutes after the Auburn volleyball game, which starts at 6 p.m. CST.
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