The Auburn Tigers defeated the Southeastern Louisiana Lions 92-59 on Wednesday night's season-opening tip-off, but it wasn't a perfect performance. In particular, Auburn's backcourt struggled.
Tahaad Pettiford led the team in scoring with 18 points, but it came on an inefficient 6-of-19 shooting performance, with a 1-of-6 showing from beyond the arc.
Kevin Overton shot 4-of-5 from beyond the arc, which made up all of his recorded shot attempts, but he turned the ball over five times.
Coach Steven Pearl addressed how the Tigers were able to overcome the underwhelming backcourt performance to blow the doors off SLU in front of the Jungle.
Steven Pearl credits Auburn's bench for blowout win over SLU
"I thought it was the difference in the game... We gotta trust our bench. Our bench came into the game and gave us really, really positive minutes. That's the big bright spot for tonight," Pearl said of his bench, which scored 38 points.
"Lot of positive contributions when two of our best players didn't have their best nights. That's why you have depth."
It certainly wasn't the most difficult test of the offseason, with 14 new players on the Lions' roster. Last year, Southeastern Louisiana finished 9-22 overall and 6-16 in the Southland Conference. David Kiefer is in his eighth year in Hammond, Louisiana, and his team regressed mightily last year after four straight double-digit win seasons from 2021 to 2025.
Still, AU showed out as much as possible, splashing 12 of its 26 three-point attempts in a decisive win.
Well, Pearl didn't appreciate SLU's 18 offensive rebounds, but other than that, the Tigers' head coach was happy. Certainly, he appreciated his team's 17 offensive rebounds and the reasons they didn't have more.
"I thought we had less bad shots tonight, and it allowed our offensive rebounds to be aggressive and go get those offensive rebounds," Pearl said postgame.
Auburn hosts the Appalachian State Mountaineers on Monday night.
So far, so good in 2026-27 for men's hoops.
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