AUBURN — Auburn basketball opened its game against Vanderbilt on Wednesday by missing 11 of the first 16 shots it took from 2-point range. It was a cold streak that spanned more than 16 minutes, as the Commodores hung around in a game that had no business being close.

A seven-point possession from the Tigers — an anomaly spurred by a technical foul on Vanderbilt's Jordan Williams — helped them head into the locker room with a 10-point advantage. Auburn came out of the break scorching, making 53.3% of its attempts from the field in the closing 20 minutes to run Vanderbilt out of Neville Arena, 81-54.

Assuming coach Bruce Pearl focused on fixing the offense at halftime is a logical assumption. It's also wrong.

"Honestly, we don't really talk that much about offense," said All-SEC big man Johni Broome, who dropped 16 points and 11 rebounds. "Mostly we talk about defense (and) what we can do"

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The discussions worked, or at least they helped the Tigers maintain their effectiveness on the defensive end. Vanderbilt's main two options at guard — Tyrin Lawrence and Ezra Manjon — were held to a combined 17 points on 15.8% shooting.

Lawrence came in averaging 14.3 points at a 40% rate. Manjon was logging 15.1 with an efficiency of 46.1%.

Jaylin Williams, Denver Jones and Johni Broome combined to outscore the Commodores by themselves, but it was the team's defense that caught Pearl's eye and gave him cautious optimism: "The key of our future is the fact that we were able to hold Ty Lawrence to 2-for-11 and Manjon to 1-for-8," Pearl said.

Auburn has made it a habit of locking up opponent's top scorers, especially in the back court. Some of the recent hits include the Tigers holding Ole Miss star Matthew Murrell to eight points Jan. 20 and LSU standout Jalen Cook to three buckets on nine attempts Jan. 13.

"As we move forward, are we going to be able to guard Ole Miss' guards again?" Pearl posed. "We did the first time, but Mississippi State, one of the best defensive teams in the country, couldn't. As I look at anything as we move forward, it's, 'Will our guards continue to guard like that?'

"Will Aden (Holloway) and Tre (Donaldson) and KD (Johnson) and Denver and Lior (Berman) and Chad (Baker-Mazara) and Chris (Moore) be able to guard night in and night out against what they're going to be going up against?"

The Tigers have 10 regular-season games remaining, with five of those to come on the road. The only upcoming foe ranked outside the top 80 in the NET rankings is Missouri (131). Auburn still has to see three of the SEC's top four leading scorers — Tennessee's Dalton Knecht, Alabama's Mark Sears and Kentucky's Antonio Reeves.

"You hold a team to 27% shooting, your chances of winning is pretty high," Broome said of the defensive effort versus Vanderbilt. "We take pride in our defense. Offense is going to come. We've got a lot of scorers on our team. There's me, Denver, J-Will, Aden, Tre, KD, whatever.

"Somebody's going to carry us over the time to let our offense start flowing, but defense wins championships."

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn basketball's defensive performance has Bruce Pearl optimistic