It was the Auburn basketball team’s final preseason chance at improvement.

With Friday’s season opener against McNeese State looming, the Tigers cruised to an impressive 83-47 victory over Victory University in an exhibition Saturday night at Auburn Arena.

“I thought we played well,” said Auburn head coach Tony Barbee. “I like where we are in a lot of facets in the game. I like our intensity. I like where our defensive pressure is. We just need to be more consistent possession by possession playing that hard.

Frankie Sullivan and Chris Denson scored 16 points apiece in the win, and Kenny Gabriel added 10 points and nine rebounds. Allen Payne had 10 points and freshman Willy Kouassi 8 points and eight boards.

Saturday’s game and the Tigers’ exhibition game with Paine College on Tuesday was Sullivan’s first action since sitting out most of last season with a torn ACL.

“In the first exhibition, I was really just trying to find my shape,” Sullivan said. “A lot of my moves are getting to the basket and using my legs, so I’m happy with where they are right now. I played OK in this game. I’m still not satisfied with myself. It’s the type of guy that I am — I don’t feel that I was helping out my team enough as I should have.”

After Auburn scored the first 7 points of the game and Victory the next 7 to tie it, the Tigers ended the half on a 33-9 run to take a 40-16 halftime lead.

The Tigers coasted from there.

“Defensively, I like where we are,” Barbee said. “The press that we have in place is making us more aggressive.”

Auburn enjoyed its largest lead of the game of 39 points at 80-41 with six minutes to play, and Barbee emptied the Tigers bench.

Walk-ons T.J. Rice and Dylan Spencer each came in as Rice totaled 3 points and had a rebound and steal, while Spencer collected three rebounds.

Rob Chubb chipped in 9 points, six assists, three assists and two blocks in 18 minutes, while Josh Wallace had seven assists and five points.

Auburn outshot Victory 42.3 percent to 24.1 percent from the field and forced 29 turnovers.

“We have a new press-attack that causes turnovers and gets us out and running,” Denson said. “Today, we did a scouting report and saw that they have a lot of turnovers. We reiterated in practice that we need to press a lot and force the turnovers and it worked. Fortunately, we came out with good buckets.”

Auburn season-opening game against McNeese State will be Friday at 7 p.m. in Auburn Arena.