AUBURN, Ala. – College basketball season is back as the Auburn men's basketball team hosts NCAA Division II Auburn University at Montgomery, in its lone exhibition tilt on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at Neville Arena.
For the second-straight year, the Tigers will face a team from the Gulf South Conference. They are 8-1 all-time in exhibition games under head coach Bruce Pearl, defeating NCAA Division II UAH, 87-69, last season.
"We're ready to play somebody else," Pearl said. "We did have a closed scrimmage on Sunday. Without going into details, we played hard and played well. We were excited to play somebody else. I think that will be the case again on Wednesday."
This offseason, Auburn added three transfers – junior guard/forward Chad Baker-Mazara (114 3s / 44.0%), junior guard Chaney Johnson (67 3s/ 37.2%) and junior guard Denver Jones (107 3s / 35.7%) – who made a combined 288 3-pointers on 39.0 percent shooting prior to The Plains.
"The formula remains the same," said Pearl, on maintaining a winning culture and adding newcomers into the fold. "I keep promising my returning players that I'm going to bring guys into the locker room that they will want to be friends with. Guys they want to play with. Guys they will want to win championships with. Based on the summer and preseason, I think that chemistry has been a part of it."
Pearl complimented those newcomers and the team's depth this season in his weekly press conference on Monday.
"Our starting five might not end the game," he said. "I will tell you there will be a ton of parity. More than any team that I have coached, the balance of minutes will be the greatest of any team I have coached. I have played 10 guys double-digits my entire career. We won't drop off much when we go to the bench. Again, our starters are good enough. There's just not a lot of drop off."
BREAK OUT THE BROOME
Junior big man Johni Broome, a preseason All-SEC First Team selection, is the only returning player in the SEC who averaged 14.0 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.0 blocks last year. He is a preseason watch list candidate for the Kareem Abdur-Jabbar Center of the Year Award.
A LOOK AT AUM
The Warhawks return three players, who averaged double figures last season including the team's top returning scorer Travis Anderson (14.1 ppg) along with Jalen Gaston (13.0 ppg) and Joseph Lanzi (11.4 ppg). The trio combined for 47.5 percent of AUM's scoring a year ago.
Last season, AUM earned the No. 6 seed in its conference tournament – the highest seed in the program's NCAA Division II history.
DIVISION II STAR ON THE RISE
Chaney Johnson, who was the 2023 Gulf South Conference Player of the Year, is all too familiar with AUM. In three seasons (including a COVID year) at UAH, he played AUM three times scoring 20 points versus the Warhawks as a freshman in 2021-22 and recording a near double-double with 25 points, nine rebounds and three steals as a sophomore in 2022-23.
HOW TO LISTEN
Wednesday's game will not be televised our streamed, but fans, who do not have a ticket for the game, can listen to an audio only broadcast via the Auburn Athletics mobile app.
Voice of the Tigers Andy Burcham, Hall of Famer Sonny Smith and Brad Law will be on the call with coverage beginning at 6:45 p.m.
