Auburn basketball: Jon Rothstein believes 2022-23 Tigers ‘have depth, experience, and solid potential’

Auburn basketball could not make it a clean sweep of the Israeli U-20 National Team, Israeli All-Star Select Team, and the Israeli National Team, losing to the latter by single digits on Monday on the back-end of a back-to-back after dispatching the Select Team on Sunday.

That didn’t stop Jon Rothstein from complimenting the 2022-23 Tigers for their depth and experience, with the CBS Sports writer hardly going out on a limb by saying that they have solid potential three months ahead of the start of the next college basketball campaign.

On his verified Twitter account, one filled with some of the wittiest collegiate hoops observations around the web, Rothstein shared his high praise of Bruce Pearl’s group after a 95-86 loss to the Israeli National Team on Monday.

As he reminds us, it’s ONLY August:

Auburn basketball flashed a deep rotation and plenty of potential during their Israel experience

Finally getting a close matchup in their final game of the three-game tour of Israel Bruce Pearl booked for them, Auburn basketball showed off their depth during the team’s blowout victories over the U-20 and All-Star Select squads.

Between a backcourt group of Zep Jasper, K.D. Johnson, Wendell Green Jr., and Tre Donaldson, a wing rotation of Chance Westry, Allen Flanigan, and Chris Moore, and Pearl’s stable of big men featuring Johni Broome, Yohan Traore, Dylan Cardwell, and Jaylin Williams, we were re-assured that there’s over two lineups worth of talented Tigers ready to compete with anyone in the SEC.

Now, while Auburn basketball did lose three of its top seven minutes leaders from a season ago (Jabari Smith, Walker Kessler, Devan Cambridge) they did replace them with third-year Morehead State’s shutdown center Johni Broome–who was a ball-hawk during the entire Israel trip–and several promising prospects (Yohan Traore, Chance Westry) that may fit better on the Tigers than the players they’re replacing on the depth chart. The rest of the members of last year’s SEC regular season champions have returned to the Plains.

So with the depth and experience covered, now we have the ‘potential’ portion of Rothstein’s comments. AU had a 88-point differential between itself and their three opponents in the Holy Land and gets production from nos. 1-11 on the depth chart.

That enough potential for you, NCAA hoops world? Because the hype is only going to grow wilder as a potentially even more talented and better-fitting Tigers team than last year takes the court against non-conference competition this fall.