It’s hard to imagine a time of Auburn basketball without Bruce Pearl on the sidelines. A time when they were a destitute and moribund program lost to the deep confines of play in games in the SEC Tournament.
Auburns history as a program is a little all over the map. The Charles Barkley years were good, Cliff Ellis rose the program to new heights. But nobody had ever accomplished what Bruce Pearl accomplished in 11 seasons on the plains.
The program has 14 NCAA tournaments and six were under Pearl. Two Finals Fours, both under Pearl. 6 of the top 7 winningest seasons belong to Pearl (in the modern era anyway).
Last year was perhaps the culmination of the Pearl era as he steered the Tigers to a top overall seed in the NCAA tournament and won more Quad 1 games than anyone by a good margin. So it would make sense for Pearl to go out on top. Ultimately the Tigers fell short of a National title, but there were few programs as successful as Auburn over the last 8 years. Now Bruce Pearl retired.
He resigned in September when the school would have no other choice but to hand the job over to the man Bruce wanted to have the job after him. It was a power play. Pearl’s need to hand his son a multi-million dollar job despite lacking the relevant experience is the reason he was still at Auburn, and wasn’t lured away by a bigger school in recent years. Now Auburn gets to enjoy the experiment of whether or not coaching acumen can really be handed down through genes.
Other SEC Previews:
- 8. Texas Longhorns, 9-9
- 9. Mississippi State Bulldogs, 8-10
- 10. Vanderbilt Commodores, 8-10
- 11. Texas A&M Aggies, 8-10
- 12. Oklahoma Sooners, 8-10
- 13. Ole Miss Rebels, 7-11
- 14. Georgia Bulldogs, 6-12
- 15. South Carolina Gamecocks, 4-14
- 16. LSU Tigers, 3-15
Auburn Tigers
- Last season: 32 – 6 (15-3 in conference) #4 overall
- The Masses Prediction: 6th in conference, 10.71 – 7.29
- SEC Media Pick: 6th
- Analytics Average: 6th in conference, 23th overall
HEAD COACH: Steven Pearl | 1st Season, 0-0
No coaching hire is ever a sure thing, and Steven Pearl could end up with more success at Auburn than his father. There’s a long history of successful coaches wanting to pick their successor, so Bruce’s power move to retire right before the season and hand his personal pick the job isn’t necessarily unique. What is unique is Auburn committing a 5 year deal to a coach with no experience as a head coach. The terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed but even Matt McMahon has a contract for $2.8 million at LSU. You would imagine his contract is at least $2.5 million.
Steven’s only connection in coaching is his father. He played for his dad at Tennessee. And joined the Auburn staff as a strength & conditioning assistant in 2014. He’s been at Auburn ever since, ‘working his way up the ladder.’ When Bruce was handed a show cause, Steven didn’t sign up with another coach to gain some experience, he worked as a medical sales representative.
Auburn can talk all day about Steven being the defensive coordinator, and his ability to scout and recruit, but the only reason Pearl was hired was because of his last name. Every single coach in the league won basketball games as a head coach before they were hired at an SEC school. Lamont Paris won the Southern Conference at Chattanooga. McMahon won the OVC four times. Rodney Terry won the Mountain West, Mark Byington won the Sun Belt at two different schools, and Porter Moser took Loyola Chicago to a Final Four. These are accomplished coaches who all finished in the bottom five of the SEC last year.
So maybe this works out great and Steven Pearl is really just going to be awesome at Auburn. But there is no reality where this was a hire made because he was the most qualified to follow in the footsteps of the best coach in Auburn history. Other than the fact they share the same last name.
Once Pearl got it going, he really only had one bad season and that was the COVID year where Auburn only played 27 games, and their best player only played in 12 of them. Otherwise it was an incredible run. The next worst season was a 9 seed year in 2023.
This is another reason I question whether Bruce and Steven had their timing right. Auburn has never had a better run. But they also lost the bulk of their production of their best team in school history. The rebuild looks okay, but there are some questions moving forward.
LOST PRODUCTION
13th in % minutes, 88.09% | 12th in % points, 85.70% | 12th in % possessions, 85.16%
Basically the entirety of the team who won 32 games and lost in the national semi-final are gone, save for one player. A year ago the Tigers were returning nearly everyone, they were 2nd only to Texas A&M in production and minutes coming back to the roster.
There’s no more Johni Broome or Chad Baker-Mazara. Chaney Johnson is gone, and so is Miles Kelly. Denver Jones and Dylan Cardwell have each moved on. This is going to be a whole new look Auburn team.
The biggest pick-ups in the offseason is now when borderline NBA draft picks opt to return to college instead of staying in the draft. For Auburn, Tahaad Pettiford was getting some buzz as a possible late 1st round draft pick, but was more likely looking at being a 2nd round pick. Instead of testing it out he decided to take the money he could make coming back to school, and now the Tigers have a likely All-SEC guard, and potential All American. Pettiford’s combination of shot creation and passing ability make him a dynamic lead guard. With another year under his belt Pettiford should be the leader in all things for the Tigers this year.
In desperate need of proven production Auburn landed one of the top scoring wings in the portal in Keyshawn Hall. On his fourth school in four years, Hall is a bit of a merchant sailor, “Have buckets, will travel.” After starting at UNLV, Hall transferred to George Mason where he upped his scoring to 16.6 ppg, then last year he spent the season at UCF and improved his scoring again to 18.8 ppg. He’s not always the most efficient player, but it seems like Auburn could scale back his usage a bit, which has been north of 27% in each of his last two spots.
In need of more KeShawns, Auburn added Mississippi State transfer KeShawn Murphy. Yes it’s spelled different, but the sentiment remains. Murphy was one of the more consistent producers for State last season after being lightly used his first two seasons, not including a redshirt year. He upped his minutes, usage and rebounding and became a fixture on an NCAA Tournament team.
The wildcard here might be Elyjah Freeman, a former D2 All American with three years to play. There’s usually a period of adjustment for transfers jumping up that far, and even Chaney Johnson needed almost a full year before he started to make a real impact. Freeman’s upside might be even more immense as he’s a rangy wing who is going to look to attack the rim from multiple angles. If Freeman is ready sooner versus later that opens up some of the depth for the Tigers.
Auburn is going to need something from their freshmen as well, as they’ve got two 4-star top 100 players in Sebastian Williams-Adams and Kaden Magwood. Also in the signee class is the perfect Pearl player, a JUCO bucket getter with wild measurables. Abdul Bashir is listed as a 6’7, 165 lb guard who averaged 28.3 points per game at Casper College last year.
There’s another international question mark with Filip Jovic, a 20 year old forward who averaged 12.3 points per game with KK Mega Basket. There are a few ex-College Basketball players who did about the same, Rasheed Suliamon also averaged 12.3 ppg in the same league and he averaged 10.4 ppg over his career at Duke and Maryland. Jovic turning into a double digit scorer would be a welcome sight for the depth of the interior, and would allow Auburn to play bigger lineups.
Auburn has a completely remade roster full of question marks outside of the starting point guard, and they held up to scheduling like they did last year where there was no fear. From one side it’s easy to respect the approach of scheduling some of the sports best teams. On the other hand… good luck!
There are five possible losses. Depending on how you feel about Steven Pearl versus Bruce Pearl as the head coach, Auburn is either going to be about what the analytics expect, which was already looking like a borderline top 25 team, or they’re going to be a little worse. It seems unlikely Steven is superior to Bruce in year one. But the opportunities for exceeding expectations are certainly there. Take down any one or combination of Houston, Purdue, Arizona, Michigan and Oregon and the hoops world will be buzzing.
THE RULING
When Bruce Pearl announced his retirement in September, there was an opportunity to review the rebuild of the Auburn roster and look at it with clear eyes. Would the expectations for what Auburn would look like change if there was a different head coach on the sidelines?
Ultimately, I decided not to change picks. And neither did any of the other voters. With or without Pearl Auburn was one of the biggest black boxes in the SEC because of how the roster was built. When you’re starting with Tahaad Pettiford, you’re already in a good place, as EvanMiya.com has Pettiford ranked 4th nationally in his proprietary BPR rankings. And he’s third in Offensive BPR, meaning Miya expects Auburns offense to pick up significantly when Pettiford is running the show. Even Rock M+‘s Matt Watkins PAR (points above replacement) ranks Pettiford 2nd in the conference behind only Labaron Philon. PAR is adjusted for time spent on the floor, so the number might even pick up if Pettiford plays more than expected.
There are several question marks, and most notably might be with Keyshawn Hall. At UCF Hall’s usage rate was sky high at nearly 28%. He’s been productive, but with heavy usage and he hasn’t been asked to hold the line on good teams. His production came at George Mason, a team that finished 9-9 in the A-10, and then at UCF who finished 7-13 in the Big 12. He produced in the Big 12, averaging over 20 points in Big 12 play.
With Hall and Abdul Bashir you’ll have two wings who are not shy about putting the ball up.
With a bit of a patchwork roster and an eclectic cast of characters, this is the kind of team Bruce Pearl would be able to manage. Big personalities pulling in 10 different directions and Bruce would work that locker room like few coaches can.
Therein lies the biggest question with the program. Steven Pearl.
There’s nothing to suggest Pearl will be good or bad. Or mediocre! There’s just no background data. There’s good talent on the roster, and Pearl has been working with his dad for long enough to know the pitfalls of managing a high major roster. But there’s a world of difference between seeing it done, and doing it yourself.
So we wait and see how this plays out.
My Results: Auburn Tigers — 7th in Conference, 9-9
About the preview: a number of respected basketball bloggers were asked to submit one pick for the entire league schedule game by game. The game by game option allows us to account for the unbalanced schedule when addressing any kind of power rankings. Each set of picks are reflected in “the Masses” picks. Included in “the Masses” are various SEC media members who made picks at my request, as well as additional credit given to the analytics projections.
If you’d like to submit your picks, click here for the Google Form we used. If you want to know your results, send me an email.
Additionally, instead of relying solely on KenPom.com for the analytics site projections, we’re taking the average of the four main sites (EvanMiya.com, BartTorvik.com, Haslametrics.com, and KenPom.com) to give a closer consensus picture. These are weighted a touch for reliability.
The projections: This is new! In an attempt to be as accurate as we could be we increased the amount of analytics used to make individual projections which influenced how these teams slotted in order. Matt Watkins used an indepth method for projecting the entire SEC transfer list, we then mixed in EvanMiya.com’s BPR projections, and BartTorvik.com’s preseason individual projections to round out the expected production based upon how each coach routinely uses his rotations.
GLOSSARY
* – an asterisk denotes a walk-on player
GP – Games Played
%min – percentage of total available minutes played, does not account for time missed due to injury
%poss – percentage of team possessions the player is responsible for ending a possession, whether by making a shot, missing a shot not rebounded by the offense or committing a turnover. For returning players this is noted as a percentage of total team possessions. For newcomers it was total possessions when that player was on the floor, better known as Usage Rate.
ORtg – Offensive Rating, similar to a points per possession but averaged out over 100 possessions. So it’s how many points a player would score if they were responsible for 100 possessions.
BPR – Bayseian Performance Rating, a single player efficiency metric created by Evan Miyakawa to determine both offensive and defensive impact when a player is on the floor.
PPG – Points Per Game, RPG – Rebounds Per Game, APG – Assists Per Game: All traditional statistics used to measure player production.
For newcomer player rankings, we used EvanMiya.com’ s rankings for transfers, and 247sports.com ‘s Composite Rating for Freshmen and Junior College signees.
