The Auburn basketball team lost a close one against Duke on the road on Wednesday night as they fell 84-78. Both the Tigers and the Blue Devils look like national-title contenders to start the year, but it was Duke that got the best of Auburn in this matchup. It was a good game as it was close throughout, but Bruce Pearl didn't think that his Tigers played their best game.

Auburn has looked tremendous so far this season, and they were undefeated heading into this matchup, but Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl thinks that they left a lot out there on Wednesday night.

“I hope what they take is we did not play our A-game,” Pearl said after the game, according to an article from the Montgomery Advertiser. “We probably played a B-minus game. Duke had a lot to do with it.

“But we've got to leave here thinking that we should've played better, turned them over more, not gotten beat on the boards as much as we did, and we get out of here with a win. So I think the stuff that we didn't do, I think we can control.”

The Auburn basketball team got off to a hot start in this one as they went up 13-2, but Duke controlled the game after that. The Blue Devils erased the deficit and took a seven-point lead into halftime, and they led for the entire second half.

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Pearl has a lot of veteran guys on his squad this year, but a lot of them are in new roles. He expects them to get better as the year goes on.

“Everybody expects Duke to get a lot better because they're so young — and I think they will,” Pearl said. “But nobody expects our team to get better because we're older. But I've got a lot of older guys that are playing a lot of new roles.

“Chaney (Johnson) was in Division II a year ago. Dylan Cardwell has never started a game, really, at Auburn. He's starting now. Denver Jones has never played point guard. He's starting at point guard. We have a lot of new pieces, too.”

Duke is now 6-2 on the young season, and they will be back in action on Sunday against Louisville to begin ACC play. This was Auburn's first loss of the season as they are now 7-1, and they will look to bounce back on Sunday against Richmond.