Friday night felt like a party inside Neville Arena.
It was the first time Auburn men’s basketball played a game in its home arena since March 9 and the game gave fans plenty to cheer for. Auburn defeated Florida Atlantic 102-70 Friday night, finishing its slate of charity exhibitions 2-0.
It’s always wise to be cautious when evaluating a team based off an exhibition game, but Auburn showed promise in its first game of the season at Neville Arena. Now as the regular season begins, the Tigers shift their focus to a matchup with Vermont on Nov. 6.
Here are three takeaways from Friday’s game:
Still shaking off the rust
No one expects everything to look perfect in an exhibition game and that certainly wasn’t the case for either team Friday night.
For Auburn, some early sloppiness kept the game back and forth to start. Auburn had nine turnovers in the first half, leading to seven FAU points.
Many of the turnovers looked to be miscommunications or poor timing on cuts and passes. Those mistakes are somewhat expected in a preseason exhibition like this, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for the coaching staff.
On the other end, Auburn forced its fair share of turnovers too and played a good defensive game overall. There seemed to be few small miscommunications and bad rotations on defense at the beginning of the game, but like the turnovers, didn‘t look like anything that can’t be fixed.
Auburn’s athleticism makes the defense go
The defense may not be a finished product yet from a scheme and execution standpoint, but Auburn’s athletes will make it hard for any team to score on them.
Auburn’s on-ball defense was one of the highlights of the game. FAU had a hard time finding good matchups on offense, and apart from a few bad switches and miscommunications, FAU scored hardly any easy baskets.
Auburn held FAU to 40% shooting from the field and forced 19 turnovers. More importantly, Auburn scored 26 points off those turnovers, helping widen its halftime lead.
While the overall defensive structure could still use some improvement, the athleticism Auburn has to defend with gives it a high ceiling.
Both freshmen can and will play
Through two exhibition games, both Tahaad Pettiford and Jahki Howard have shown they didn’t need much time to adjust to college basketball.
Each scored in double figures both games and against FAU, both excited the crowd as Bruce Pearl predicted.
Pettiford spent significant time at point guard, playing 16 minutes before leaving the game with what looked to be some discomfort in his right leg. While on the floor, he scored 12 points and had five assists, shooting 3-for- from the floor and 2-for-5 from 3-point range.
Coming off the bench with Pettiford, Howard scored 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting. Pearl has raved about his athleticism throughout the preseason and it was on full display Friday night.
His quickness affected the game both offensively and defensively. He scored in a variety of ways and was active on the perimeter with four steals.
While it’s understandable for Pearl to want to avoid rushing the freshmen into lofty roles, both made it clear in the exhibitions that they have the talent to contribute.
Mistakes and growing pains are inevitable with young players, but as Pettiford and Howard continue to get experience, it’s going to get difficult to keep them off the floor.
Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at prauterkus@al.com
