re: #tAuburnBasketball Thread

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Diante Wood from Anniston, Al. He's a 6-5,185 SG. Plays for Sacred Heart, a small private catholic school who plays/beats some of the top 7A,6A schools in the state. Looking for the 3-peat in 1A this year. Won the 1A Player of the Year as a Sophomore. Top 3 player in-state and around 150 overall.

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I'm a big fan of Jared Harper,

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Bruce Pearl has made a habit of hitting the transfer market to fill holes on the roster, particularly at positions of need, in each of his first three seasons as Auburn’s head coach.

Will that trend continue in this recruiting class?

The Auburn staff is still reviewing possibilities as the 2016-17 season nears its end, but Pearl is not ready to divulge any information on those possibilities just yet.

“I think we have to look and see what happens when the dust all settles,” Pearl said. “ … I don’t know what we’ll do with that last scholarship or two, depending on how the roster settles. But we’re prepared to go in a lot of different directions.”

Over his first three years, Pearl has turned to transfer without much choice.

After taking over a dilapidated program in 2014, Pearl was forced to rebuild the roster from the ground up. He has made gradual progress in that endeavor, but Auburn has needed players to make an immediate impact and serve as stopgaps as Pearl and his staff wait on future recruiting classes to arrive.

Pearl has looked to transfers to provide scoring (Kareem Canty and Antoine Mason), rebounding (Cinmeon Bowers), leadership (Mason and Tyler Harris) or some combination of attributes that could help the Tigers win immediately.

This year, however, could be different.

Auburn is expected to haul in another top-40 recruiting class, the fourth in as many seasons for Pearl. With roster depth now in place, the Tigers don’t have a particularly urgent need at any position, a first under Pearl.

Plus, Pearl feels the three newcomers to next year’s team will absorb the blow Auburn will take when it loses T.J. Dunans, LaRon Smith and Ronnie Johnson after this season.

Desean Murray, one of nine transfers Pearl has signed at Auburn, sat out this season after transferring from Presbyterian College. The 6-foot-4, 230-pound forward was a member of the All-Big South team in each of his two seasons there, and he led the leading in scoring at 20.2 points per game as a sophomore. Pearl sees Murray as the natural replacement for Dunans.

The perceived replacements for Smith and Johnson, the Tigers’ two graduate transfers this season, come from the 2017 recruiting class.

Chuma Okeke, a 6-foot-7, 225-pound small forward who could slide down and play the four at Auburn, is viewed as Smith’s successor. The Tigers hope Davion Mitchell, a 6-foot-1, 185-pound point guard who will have been committed to Auburn for more than two years by the time he plays his first college game, can replace Johnson’s production and perhaps even battle Jared Harper for the starting job.

Auburn might not have the same level of need at any position as it has had in years past, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Pearl will not elect to once again dip into the transfer pool that has provided instant experience, depth and leadership so often in his first three recruiting classes.

The difference this season, if Auburn does decide to pursue a transfer, will be in the type of player the Tigers go after. Instead of searching for immediate production, Pearl and his staff could seek a project.

“Mono e mono, we kind of replace, got everything replaced that we lose,” Pearl said. “At the same time, could there be a transfer, whether it be a fifth-year, whether it be a junior college or perhaps even a high-school prospect that we want to try and develop? There’s a possibility that you’ve got a scholarship in there to develop a player, because you may not have great urgency at a certain position, and so then you can afford the luxury of bringing somebody in and developing them.”

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Watched Petty play yesterday. He's got to change his body before he gets to Alabama if he wants to contribute meaningfully next year. He's too thin to play the way he does at the next level. And his shot is not pure so it'll be interesting to see what happens with him

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He is tall and lanky but he'll play the 2/3 at Alabama. I believe he'll be a starter on day one and one of the two best players on the team. He has a great stroke, with range. What is not pure? He has supreme play-making ability overall and can jump out of the gym. In my eyes of watching him play for years, there isn't anything not to like about him

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