Bruce Pearl has lost his top six leading scorers from last year – but with five-star PG Sharife Cooper on board, Auburn Basketball will attempt to replicate last season’s success.
After being just one of two SEC teams ranked by the end of last season, Auburn Basketball will compete in one of the deepest leagues in all of college basketball this season – and will do so with one of the youngest teams in any power conference.
Seventh-year head coach Bruce Pearl has had nothing short of an impressive streak of seasons while at the helm of the Tigers. After going 44-54 in his first three seasons at Auburn, Pearl led his squad to a Round of 32 appearance in 2018 before pulling off a Cinderella run to the Final Four in 2019 as a 5-seed.
This past season’s team continued Pearl’s streak of success, beginning the season ranked no. 24 before rallying off 15-straight wins to climb to no. 4 in the AP poll in mid-January. Back-to-back losses to Alabama and Florida – Auburn’s first losses of the season sent the Tigers back to 16th, but that was followed by a seven-game win streak.
Auburn skidded a bit to end the season, going 3-4 in their final seven games – but still finished second in the SEC, 20th in the nation, and was a lock for the NCAA Tournament for the third-straight year. At 25-6, Auburn’s resume was loaded – they went undefeated in non-conference, with all six of their losses coming in SEC play.
Their wins included non-conference romps over Richmond, Furman, and Saint Louis – all 20-plus win mid-major powers – while also carrying victories in league play against Kentucky, LSU, and Mississippi State. Contrarily, though, they owned a few disappointing losses to Missouri, Georgia, and Texas A&M.
The Tigers had the luxury of having four double-digit scorers last season in Samir Doughty (16.7 ppg), Isaac Okoro (12.8), J’Von McCormick (11.7), and Austin Wiley (10.6). Additionally, Danjel Purifoy (8.5) and Anfernee McLemore (6.8) both provided ample minutes.
But now, all six are gone, and Pearl and his staff have been forced to replace nearly all of their production from last season. Devan Cambridge, Jamal Johnson, and Allen Flanigan – the returning leading scorers at 4.2, 3.5, and 3.2 ppg, respectively – will all be expected to step up to fill the holes, but they will have some exceptionally talented assistance arriving to help.
Pearl and his staff are bringing in the ninth-ranked recruiting class in the nation, headlined by the highest-touted recruit in program history in Sharife Cooper. Cooper, a 6-foot point guard, will undoubtedly bear the brute of carrying the Tigers on his shoulders.
In addition to Cooper, four-star power forward JT Thor – the seventh-highest ranked recruit in program history – will also join the fray, and will most likely see a substantial amount of playing time almost immediately.
To state the obvious: Auburn is young. Their roster features no seniors and just three juniors. The other 13 players – on a roster of 16 – are sophomores and freshmen. Success for the Tigers will undoubtedly depend on the development and flourishment of Cooper and Thor.
They will have to compete in an extremely competitive SEC, which the preseason KenPom ratings indicate will be nothing short of a gauntlet. I will talk more about that soon – but for what it is worth, Auburn’s position is 66th – still in the NCAA tournament field, but tenth among SEC teams.
The Tigers will have a lot of work to do in order to make it three-straight seasons in the NCAA tournament – and they will desperately need people to step up immediately – but they have the talent necessary to pull it off. They have pulled off crazier things before if the Final Four run is any indication, but all of this depends on if the Tigers can overcome their inexperience.