AUBURN, Ala. – With scouts from all but a handful of NBA teams taking notes, Auburn held its annual Pro Day Thursday at Neville Arena.
"This is for the kids," said Auburn coach Bruce Pearl, equating the opportunity to business students interviewing with Fortune 500 companies. "These pro scouts are interviewing our players and laying eyes on them personally."
For the scouts' benefit, the Tigers conducted shooting drills similar to an NBA individual workout before an officiated 20-minute scrimmage.
"I hope we shoot the lights out," Pearl said. "I hope the offense is better than the defense, which it's been so far this year."
The large turnout of NBA front office personnel indicates how Pearl, in his 10th season, has elevated Auburn's program.
"There are a lot of things you want to get accomplished when you're running a basketball program," said Pearl, contrasting the interest of pro scouts now to what it would have been had Auburn hosted such an event a decade ago. "We may not have gotten many guys to show up."
For Auburn center Johni Broome, Pro Day marked his latest chance to impress the pros after participating in the NBA Combine over the summer.
"It's a great opportunity to showcase our skills," Broome said, sharing his advice to teammates less accustomed to competing before so many NBA influencers.
"Give it 110 percent effort," Broome said. "Play hard, that's going to take care of a lot of stuff. Don't do anything out of the ordinary. Be normal. I feel like all my teammates came well-prepared. I just tell them good luck and go out there and have fun."
Speaking courtside to reporters before greeting each NBA scout individually, Pearl shared his first impressions of the 2023-24 Tigers.
"I think we're better offensively than we are defensively and our biggest challenge is one-on-one coverage," he said.
With the season opener on Nov. 7 against Baylor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, fewer than four weeks away, Pearl told the Tigers he would update them next week on Auburn's potential starting lineup.
"That's not going to be easy," Pearl said, "because there's been really good parity across the board."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer
