Auburn basketball is about to start a season without a general manager. The Tigers fired Brian Kloman on October 26th after he didn't disclose information about international signee Mantas Rubstavicius' college coursework in Europe. Rubstavicius dropped his lawsuit against the NCAA and won't play this year.
Now head coach Steven Pearl says the staff will handle the GM job by committee, and a new hire appears unlikely for now.
That leaves a fair question: why not just hire someone?
The simple answer is timing. The season is days away, and a GM hired now would be learning on the fly. Plus, the program may not want to rush a second mistake. Kloman was only hired from Louisville in March. Potentially burning through two GMs in a year would look worse than waiting. If Auburn is trying to be careful, that's a defensible choice.
But "by committee" is a double-edged sword. A GM in this era typically touches roster building, NIL, contracts, and international recruiting. Auburn hasn't said who now owns each of those pieces, but the extra workload could play a negative role in the coaching staff as the season goes on. That also matters for the transfer portal, where decisions come fast.
Could Auburn basketball find it harder to find a GM replacement this way?
There is another pressing question with all of this:
Does the structure around Pearl make the job harder to fill?
A new GM would be coming into a program where the last one lasted seven months and left behind a scandal. Would a top candidate want that role without clear authority? Auburn hasn't said, and I can't know.
What does Pearl gain by going without? More control. With no GM, the head coach has the final say on roster decisions. That can help a coach who knows what he wants, but it can also leave him with more work than one person or a staff can handle during a season.
The test comes soon. The first games will show whether the Tigers are short-handed on the court. The portal and spring recruiting will show whether the committee works. If it does, Auburn may never need a new full-time GM. If it doesn't, the pressure falls on Pearl, and fans will remember who made the call.
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