For seven players on Auburn’s women’s basketball team, Thursday night was their introduction to the SEC.

And while inexperienced in a fast and physical league, Johnnie Harris’ squad bubbles with potential.

Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl sees it.

“She’s been so short-handed the couple of years, it’s been a talent mismatch,” Pearl said of Auburn’s women’s basketball team during his press conference Thursday. “She’s got an SEC-talent roster right now. She’s got some balance inside and out and some kids that are hard to cover and they’re playing well together.”

Tennessee women’s basketball coach Kellie Harper also saw the potential firsthand as she and the Lady Vols visited Auburn’s Neville Arena Thursday night as both them and the Tigers opened conference play.

“That’s an Auburn team that’s playing well. They’re going to get a lot of wins this season,” Harper said.

Considering Harper won three national titles as a player at Tennessee under the legendary Pat Summitt, Harper’s compliments shouldn’t be taken for granted. She’s seen good basketball, played good basketball and is now coaching good basketball with the Lady Vols, who were projected to finish third in the SEC this season.

Meanwhile, Auburn was projected to finish 12th — or third from the bottom of the barrel in the consistently improving landscape of SEC women’s basketball.

However, the final score of Thursday night’s SEC opener from Neville Arena didn’t illustrate such a gap. Auburn fell to Tennessee 75-67 in a game that would’ve left anyone walking away nodding their head in agreement with both Pearl and Harper.

Auburn came out the gate firing on all cylinders – especially defensively.

“They set the tone with their defensive intensity,” Harper said. “They take you out of what you want to do and you’ve got to be able to play through some ugly, you’ve got to be able to be tough on both ends of the court.”

The Tigers’ fast start on the defensive side of the ball helped bolster their offense as Auburn forced 14 first-half turnovers, which in turn led to 14 points. This is compared to Auburn coughing up the ball just two times in the first half, making way for Tennessee to score just five points off turnovers.

At one point in the first quarter, the Lady Vols went just south of five minutes without scoring a field goal.

“I thought we came out tough,” said Harris, whose team of Tigers took a 40-32 advantage into the locker room.

But the buck stopped there.

Tennessee came out the second half and immediately tightened the game to just three points. Meanwhile, Auburn went on a near-six-minute scoring drought, paving the way for the Lady Vols to retake the lead with just more than two minutes to play in the third quarter.

The unraveling continued as Auburn junior Mar’Shaun Bostic missed a wide-open transition layup – a shot that was rebounded by the Lady Vols, who converted with a big 3-pointer on the opposite end of the floor.

“In the second half we didn’t come out with that same intensity and that same hunger,” Harris said. “We missed shots, we missed layups and they go down and hit a 3. Those things were hard to overcome. The mistakes we made can be corrected.”

Tennessee outscored Auburn 22-8 in a third quarter that Harris said the Tigers started showing signs of fatigue.

And Harris doesn’t let that serve as an excuse, but rather uses it as an example to show just how inexperienced her team is in this league.

“It’s a very inexperienced roster,” Harris said. “We do have some talent, but it’s different when you get into SEC play.”

With Auburn having only played its first of 16 regular season conference games, there’s plenty of time for the Tigers to settle into the speed and intensity of SEC women’s basketball.

“I do think we have a group that is hungry. They feel bad about this loss. They know we missed an opportunity,” Harris said. “They’ll go back and we’ll prepare. They’ll prepare better and they’ll be prepared better a little bit mentally now that they know what to look for. I feel like we’ll get better from this.”