NCAA Basketball: Analyzing Makur Maker 5 potential college options

Auburn Tigers

If Maker were to pick the Tigers, he would be joining a completely different roster compared to the season prior. The team’s top six scorers all are gone, including potential 1st round NBA Draft pick Isaac Okoro. The others were all seniors, including starting frontcourt players Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy. Wiley was a top-tier incoming recruit years ago but he missed an entire season due to impermissible benefits, which seemed to derail his rise as a center prospect.

Maker would be the highest-ever ranked incoming freshman in Auburn Basketball if he joined. For now, that honor goes to Sharife Cooper, a five-star point guard commit that can easily be a “one and done” player. He leads a top-10 incoming recruiting class, featuring top-50 forward JT Thor and recent three-star center commit Dylan Cardwell. Before this offseason, the Tigers had nothing in the frontcourt ready for next season and now head coach Bruce Pearl has quickly landed key prospects.

A Cooper-Maker pairing would be awesome to watch and compared to other potential options, the big man would be a focal point on the offense. But there’s not much of a supporting cast to expect Auburn to be a top-tier team in the SEC or even a threat if they made the NCAA Tournament. They aren’t likely to land Maker but the Tigers being connected to a five-star recruit will only help their brand for the 2021 class.