What Auburn basketball is getting in JUCO transfer Abdul Bashir
The Tigers hope lightning strikes twice with a JUCO wing, as Bashir will bring more ultra-confident shooting and playmaking to Auburn.
SAN ANTONIO — Bruce Pearl likes to say that he’s a small-school guy.
Even though he has built Auburn up to a power in the SEC — the richest and most high-profile conference in the country — his head-coaching roots were at Division II Southern Indiana and mid-major Milwaukee.
Over the years, Pearl has used the transfer portal to find small-school talents who would go on to be some of his very best players on championship-winning, Final Four-caliber teams.
Johni Broome, who has a great argument now as the greatest men’s basketball player in Auburn history, was a no-name recruit who had to start out at Morehead State. Chad Baker-Mazara bounced around below the high-majors, including a stint in junior college, before coming to Auburn. Denver Jones was plugging away for years in JUCO and on a losing FIU team. Chaney Johnson was a D-II product.
While many fans want to see Auburn sign the 5-star freshmen such as Tahaad Pettiford and Jabari Smith and land household names from the portal such as Walker Kessler, players who came from much humbler beginnings have been at the foundation of the Tigers’ current golden age under Pearl.
That brings us to the second of two transfers that Auburn has already landed in its crucial roster reloading project for the 2025-26 season — one that got on the Tigers’ radar after turning heads more than 1,500 miles away in Casper, Wyoming.
Abdul Bashir is originally from Omaha, Nebraska. His parents immigrated there from Somalia. Abdul’s twin brother, Abdi Bashir Jr., is a name that might be familiar to fans, as he was the high-volume scorer for Monmouth when it played Auburn back in December. (Abdi Jr. was rumored to be an Auburn target for a while, but he recently decided to transfer to Kansas State.)
While Abdi Jr. started his career at the Division I level, Abdul went the junior college route. After a strong freshman season with the Casper College Thunderbirds, Abdul took over as a sophomore, becoming the highest-scoring player in JUCO basketball at a sizzling 27.2 points per game.
The 6-foot-7 wing is rated as the No. 3 JUCO prospect in the country by JUCORecruiting.com, with the only two players ahead of him being big men now committed to TCU (Xavier Edmonds) and Washington (Mady Traore).
Bashir committed to Auburn back in February, shortly after taking an official visit to the Plains for the Tigers’ game against eventual national champion Florida. Texas A&M, Nebraska, Arizona State, UCF, Kansas State and Seton Hall were among the teams vying for his pledge.
“I chose Auburn because Coach Pearl and his staff made me feel like a priority,” Bashir told On3 after his commitment. “They have a great resume with people like me and are amazing at developing players.”
In several ways, Bashir’s commitment to Auburn is similar to what the Tigers did when they pulled Baker-Mazara out of the junior college ranks two offseasons ago. Auburn was having to reset its roster after several major departures. Baker-Mazara made the jump and quickly became a key figure.
The Tigers will hope that lightning can strike twice out of JUCO, as Bashir is set to join a backcourt that could bring back the likes of Pettiford and Baker-Mazara — but will need to continue to load up with scoring potential after losing Broome, Jones and other key weapons after their best-ever season.
Like we did yesterday with Keyshawn Hall, here is our breakdown of what Bashir should bring to Auburn after watching film of his sophomore season at Casper College. This scouting report isn’t quite as long as Hall’s, due to the availability of film at the JUCO level, but it still has more than three dozen clips split into five supercuts.
We’ll start with Bashir’s most prominent trait: An ability to create his own shot — and hit it — at an extremely high volume.