Miles Kelly excels in Auburn debut: 'He's an NBA-caliber 3-point shooter'

The Neville Arena crowd was beside itself.

On Night 1 of the 2024-2025 Auburn men's basketball season, the energetic crowd was witnessing a throttling. Auburn was in the midst of a season-opening beatdown of Vermont that was only getting worse for the reigning America East champions.

Georgia Tech transfer Miles Kelly had already made four 3-pointers in a row when Auburn led 78-25 at the 10:24 mark of the second half, but for Kelly - who claimed he had "blacked out" after the fourth make - four wasn't enough.

He caught Tahaad Pettiford's transition pass at the volleyball line, letting another one fly and sending the student section into a frenzy.

"Everything I threw up was going in," Kelly said after the game.

Kelly finished the game leading all scorers with 21 points, make seven of his nine 3-pointers. That tied a career high previously reached on three other occasions, but nine attempts were the fewest it took him to reach seven makes.

Kelly's addition to the team was one that made waves during the offseason, adding an injection of scoring and 3-point shooting to the lineup that Auburn missed at times last season.

"He is an NBA-caliber 3-point shooter. If he can see it, he can make it," Bruce Pearl said after the game. "It wasn't like we got him great shots. He was shooting it from anywhere. I thought he had one from Opelika one time."

The shot from the neighboring town Pearl is referring to is Kelly's final 3-pointer mentioned earlier. It was a shot that symbolized Auburn's night, doing pretty much whatever it wanted against Vermont.

Auburn won the game 94-43, beating a team that made the NCAA Tournament last season and won its conference the last eight years in a row. It wasn't just Kelly who caught fire either.

The Tigers shot 16-for-35 from 3-point range and 56.3% from the field overall. Five different players made multiple 3-pointers and six finished in double figures.

"It's hard to key in on one person. Like, today was my day but it can be someone else's day at any given time," Kelly said. " Denver [Jones] says I'm the best shooter, but I would say he's the best shooter. You see he got hot there, it's just at any given day like you don't know who's going to get off or not."

Jones first called Kelly the best shooter on the team at SEC Media Day and expanded on those comments after Wednesday's game.

"Everybody asked me, 'who the best shooter on the team?'" Jones said. "I told them, I was like 'look, we got Miles. I ain't gonna elaborate too much. I said, y'all just gonna see when the season started.' So he showed them today what he's capable of."

If the Vermont game was any indication, Kelly's shooting ability is worthy of Jones' praise. Even better for Auburn, he's not the only option. And for a team that forced Vermont, who averaged 9.1 turnovers per game last season, to turn it over 16 times, that's a scary matchup for anyone Auburn faces.