Auburn basketball lineup news should excite Tiger fans

CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein reported that Auburn basketball head coach Bruce Pearl could consider starting two transfers, FIU’s Denver Jones and Chad Baker-Mazara, who comes from Northwest Florida State College but played for San Diego State two seasons ago, to boost the Tigers’ shooting.

“Well embedded moles in the SEC have sent word that two newcomers at Auburn — Denver Jones (FIU) and Chad Baker-Mazara — are in the mix to start,” Rothstein prefaced before saying, “Tigers should be a significantly better shooting team than last season.”

And that news should excite every single member of the Auburn family considering that only 43 schools in the entire 363-team Division I field shot worse from beyond the arc than the Tigers did during the 2023-24 season. If it wasn’t for Jaylin Williams and Johni Broome cleaning up misses, AU’s offense would’ve been non-tournament material.

Auburn basketball continues to leverage transfer portal for minutes-getters

Bruce Pearl doesn’t just take to the transfer portal to find a depth piece. Instead, every trip in the post-COVID-19/NIL landscape has been designed to address a key area of need on either side of the ball.

In nabbing Broome in 2022, the Tigers found their frontcourt replacement for Walker Kessler in the middle. When they brought on Wendell Green Jr., Zep Jasper, and K.D. Johnson in 2021, Pearl found three players capable of eating up minutes in the backcourt.

In 2023, it seems as though the purpose behind the transfer portal detours was to find a shooter who can fill the role Allen Flanigan struggled to in Baker-Mazara on the perimeter, and replace the shooting and defense Green and Jasper provided in one fell swoop with Jones.

If Pearl was able to do that during this past portal cycle, Auburn will once again be a threat to make the tournament — especially if Aden Holloway is as good as advertised.