Bruce Pearl didn't exactly inspire confidence in his Auburn basketball team ahead of the Tigers' 2024-25 opener against Vermont on November 6. Pearl compared the Catamounts to Yale. Auburn fans and detractors alike know what that means.
“So Vermont is very Yale-like, which should concern us all,” Pearl said (h/t On SI). “John Becker, (head) coach of Vermont, he’s got a great reputation back East. One of the best mid-major coaches in the country, been doing it a long time. We knew that this was going to be a game against the field right from the very beginning. They’ll (Vermont) run really good offensive stuff, hard to guard stuff. Their bigs are undersized but physical. They’re almost physical to a fault. They’ve got a couple dead-eye shooters, again kind of like Yale. It’ll be a really scrappy team I expect.
"This group of guys at Vermont have been together for a long time, they work well together. If you overplay things too much, they’ll beat your back door in.”
Pearl knows his Tigers and he really knows his enemies. Auburn's head coach comparing Vermont to Yale isn't nothing. And it's also not nothing that he recently said that he felt his team needed another scrimmage to get up to snuff.
Auburn basketball could be vulnerable against Vermont
Integrating Johni Broome at the 4 next to Dylan Cardwell, Pearl is implementing a different style without stretch-four Jaylin Williams; now a member of the Denver Nuggets in the NBA. JP Pegues was the starting 1 during the FAU scrimmage, so there's a good chance there's a new table-setter too.
Auburn is pretty far from a lock on Wednesday despite being a double-digit favorite. This isn't the night to hammer the spread by any stretch.
Unless, of course, Pearl's program is about to exceed expectations in a big way after ending their 2023-24 season with such mind-numbing disappointment this past March.