Newcomer Miles Kelly impresses with 3-point shooting during Auburn's opening victory
Auburn has got itself a shooter.
After being an up-and-down shooting team last season and ultimately seeing its season end with shaky 3-point shooting, Bruce Pearl went out and got Miles Kelly, a transfer from Georgia Tech who through three seasons shot 35 percent from deep with the Yellow Jackets.
He made himself known to the thousands of Auburn fans in Neville Arena in the Tigers' season opener against Vermont Wednesday night — finishing with 21 points, all coming by way of seven 3-pointers.
His performance encapsulated a complete, dominant effort from Auburn, which hit 16 3-pointers on its way to a 94-43 win over the preseason favorite to win the America East.
"Look, he is an NBA-caliber 3-point shooter, and if he can see it, he can make it," Pearl said. "Vermont probably didn't have a lot of scouting on Miles Kelly, probably looked at some stuff he did back at Georgia Tech. it wasn't like we got him great shots. He was shooting it from anywhere. I thought he had one from Opelika, but he was open so he shot it."
For Vermont, it was the Catamounts' second game of the season, coming off a 67-62 win at UAB on Monday in which they held the Blazers to zero 3-point makes.
Vermont head coach John Becker said coming into his team's game against Auburn, it was a "pick your poison" approach defensively. They could either cover Auburn's shooters and allow Johni Broome to feast inside or send multiple players toward Broome and force him to pass to the likes of Kelly. Vermont with the latter.
"Obviously, it was the wrong decision," Becker said.
Amidst Kelly's breakout Auburn debut on Wednesday, he went on a stretch in the second half that saw him hit five of his 3-pointers over a four-minute span. After missing his first three shots of the game, everything changed — hitting seven of his last eight shots.
"After like the fourth one, I kind of just blacked out," Kelly said. "Like, everything I threw up was going in, and my teammates did a good job of finding me, and I just knocked the shots down."
Kelly technically made his home Auburn debut last Friday in an exhibition win against Florida Atlantic where he scored 15 points and knocked down three triples.
But Wednesday, in Auburn's first official game of the season, was a different experience for Kelly in front of a sold-out home crowd. It was one in which he sent those in the stands and his teammates on the bench into a frenzy every time he shot one from deep.
"I fed off it a lot," Kelly said of the home crowd. "I mean shoot, it's my second time playing in Neville. My teammates, Denver (Jones), all of them been telling me how crazy the jungle is, and last game I witnessed it for the first time, but today was extra special for sure."
Of course, Kelly's performance was one that was a welcome sight for a program that struggled shooting at times last year.
But according to Kelly, he's not the only player on this team who could shoot Auburn to some wins this year. If you ask him, anyone from the freshmen in Tahaad Pettiford and Jahki Howard to the veterans in Broome, JP Pegues, Denver Jones, Dylan Cardwell and Chad Baker-Mazara could be the reason Auburn might win a lot of games this year.
"It's super, super hard to cover everybody," Kelly said. "I mean we got Johni and Dylan down there. We got Chad, JP, Tahaad, Jahki, Denver. It
