The best season in Auburn basketball history has come and gone, and now, Bruce Pearl essentially has to start from scratch. Johni Broome, Dylan Cardwell, Miles Kelly, and Denver Jones are all out of eligibility, and with Chad Baker-Mazara entering the transfer portal to spend the final year of his lengthy college basketball career elsewhere, the Tigers’ entire starting five is gone.
Such is the reality in the transfer portal era, where the turnover is constant and oftentimes the goal is to get old and stay old with veteran transfers, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for a program and a fanbase desperately hoping to build off last year’s success.
Chad-Baker Mazara enters transfer portal to depart Auburn
Baker-Mazara has spent time at Duquesne, San Diego State, and even junior college Northwest Florida State for a season, which has allowed him this additional year of eligibility despite playing much of last season at 25 years old. The 6-foot-7 wing will be a hot commodity on the portal market and difficult to replace for Pearl and his staff, though one of the best possible replacements is already heading to the program.
UCF transfer Keyshawn Hall was Pearl’s first of two transfer portal additions so far, and like Baker-Mazara, he’s a 6-foot-7 lefty wing. Hall, also well-traveled, having played for three different programs over the past three years (UNLV, George Mason, and UCF), is a different style of scorer. With a much stouter frame, Hall uses his physicality to get to the paint, scoring over 40 percent of his points on the interior compared to just 27.7 percent from the 180-pound Baker-Mazara (according to CBBanalytics.com).
Hall, not Baker-Mazara, will now likely be the centerpiece of Pearl’s rebuilt roster, along with Mississippi State transfer KeShawn Murphy and a four-player high school recruiting class that is ranked No. 15 in the country. While that’s a good foundation, Pearl will still need to do a significant amount of work in the transfer portal to offset the loss of Baker-Mazara and the rest of his starting lineup to get back to the Final Four.