Bruce Pearl’s second Final Four run at Auburn was led by an overwhelmingly veteran group, but after the National Semifinal loss to Florida, Tigers fans at least expected Chad Baker-Mazara to return. Despite playing last season at 25 years old, Baker-Mazara has one additional year of eligibility left, but he’s going to be spending it elsewhere after entering the transfer portal and leaving Pearl to replace his entire starting lineup.
Baker-Mazara’s departure came as a surprise to the fanbase, but a recent report is giving some clarity, and it turns out that the decision to transfer may have been over NIL drama. According to the Field of 68, Baker-Mazara was upset when he learned that incoming UCF transfer Keyshawn Hall was doubling his $1.1 million NIL package to stay put, so he left to get a better deal on the open market.
reports indicate one of reasons why Chad Baker Mazara left Auburn was fact he signed a 1.1 million deal to return to that SEC school, then was upset when he discovered Tigers offered transfer Keyshawn Hall double that amount. Field of 68 gets credit for this one. strong reporting…
— Dick Weiss (@HoopsWeiss) April 23, 2025
Chad Baker-Mazara reportedly entered transfer portal after hearing Keyshawn Hall’s massive NIL deal
In this era of unrestricted player movement in college basketball, competition prices your price tag up. That’s why so many players flock to the transfer portal every offseason, even if they’re happy in their current situation. It’s almost impossible to get a fair market deal from your program without the leverage of the portal, and Baker-Mazara learned that the hard way this offseason.
Hall is an important addition for the Tigers, especially as the program attempts to replace First-Team All-American Johni Broome’s scoring in the frontcourt. While he’s not a dominant post presence like Broome, Hall is a physical 6-foot-7, 235-pound forward who is difficult to keep out of the paint and averaged 18.8 points for UCF last season. Hall has leveraged the transfer portal to his full advantage, now on his fourth team in four years, rising from UNLV in the Mountain West, to George Mason in the Atlantic 10, to the Big 12, and now the SEC.
While he’s a mercurial personality, Baker-Mazara was arguably the heart and soul of last year’s Auburn team and a fan favorite. He was also highly productive as the Tigers won the regular season title in the most competitive league in college basketball, averaging 12.3 points and 2.7 assists, while shooting 44.8% from the field.
Hall is a better option as a primary offensive initiator, which Auburn may need him to be next season, but in a vacuum, he’s certainly not twice as good as Baker-Mazara. There is only so much NIL money to go around, but Baker-Mazara felt like an important piece to keep in the program as the connective tissue to last season’s success. However, NIL deals can get messy, and Baker-Mazara, who likely doesn’t have an NBA career in his future, needed to maximize his earning potential, and evidently felt he couldn’t do that at Auburn.