What might Auburn basketball do at point guard next season?

With Aden Holloway and Tre Donaldson in the portal, the Tigers could look very different at the 1. Here are the top options to watch.

4/12 Update: If you’re reading this on Friday (or later), Auburn has landed a new point guard via the transfer portal in Furman’s JP Pegues. I’ve unlocked this entire story from earlier in the week for everyone to read. There’s a 600-plus-word section on Pegues towards the middle of it.

PG Aden Holloway (Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

On March 2, Auburn opened the most important month of the college basketball season with a 15-point home win over Mississippi State.

The Tigers bounced back from a road loss at Tennessee that largely ended their SEC championship hopes, and they would start a six-game winning streak that would end with them cutting down the nets in Nashville as the conference’s tournament champions.

During the win over Mississippi State, Tre Donaldson came off the bench and dished out a season-high six assists, tying a mark he set in wins over Texas A&M and Ole Miss earlier in the season. He played 19 minutes.

But Auburn’s starting point guard, Aden Holloway, had a quiet game. In 21 minutes, he only took one shot from the field — a 2-pointer — and came up with one assist.

“It's hard when you're only playing half the game to get a rhythm,” Bruce Pearl said afterwards. “It is. It's hard for both Aden and Tre, because right now, they're only playing half the game.”

Auburn had a unique arrangement at the point guard spot last season that came with its pros and cons. Holloway was a 5-star freshman and a McDonald’s All-American. Donaldson was a second-year sophomore who was coming off a strong finish to his own debut campaign.

Both were talented in their own way: Holloway was a prolific shooter who took care of the ball quite well, Donaldson was a fast-paced assist machine who could catch fire with his own jumper. Both made great strides on defense, and when Auburn was at its very best on offense, the point guards were a key part of that success.

But Pearl was right: The arrangement of splitting minutes virtually 50-50 between two underclassman point guards wasn’t easy. Neither one separated himself to the point of getting the lion’s share of the playing time, and neither one played poorly enough to fall out of favor.

On a team that was as deep and as balanced as any in major college basketball, the arrangement between Holloway and Donaldson made sense on paper. At times, it really delivered on the floor.

But when the Tigers lost this past season, point guard play was often a reason behind the result. The assist-to-turnover ratio dropped considerably, along with the scoring and shooting numbers.

It didn’t take long to realize that change was coming at the point guard spot on the Plains, and Auburn quickly prepared itself for it. The Tigers reportedly contacted several ball-dominant guards in the transfer portal, including some of the best floor generals on the market.

There was also the looming presence of Tahaad Pettiford, another 5-star McDonald’s All-American who just happened to be the No. 1-rated point guard in the 2024 class by the 247Sports Composite.

So it should have come as no surprise when an Auburn point guard entered the transfer portal last week. That was Donaldson.

But, on Tuesday, news broke that Holloway was doing the exact same thing.

In this day and age of college basketball, roster change is a constant. Auburn still doesn’t know if it will be able to return All-American center Johni Broome or have to replace him. The Tigers have also lost ultra-veteran power forward Jaylin Williams to graduation and multi-year spark plug K.D. Johnson to the transfer portal.

Yet the point guard situation feels like it’s jumping to the top of the list of priorities now that both Holloway and Donaldson are exploring their options elsewhere.

The good news is that same transfer portal can provide as much as it takes away for a program.

JP Pegues: An SEC-heavy fight to the finish

Update: Pegues has committed to Auburn.

In late October, before the official start of the season, Auburn played a behind-closed-doors scrimmage with Furman. The Tigers won, 110-77, with Holloway missing most of the game due to an early injury.

Furman’s two leading scorers in that game were 6-foot-4 shooting guard Marcus Foster (23) and 6-foot-1 point guard JP Pegues (16). Months later, when Foster and Pegues both jumped into the transfer portal, Auburn quickly contacted both of them.

Foster committed to Xavier in mid-March, but Pegues is still on the board. Last week, Pegues named an All-SEC final four list of schools: Auburn, Florida, Oklahoma and South Carolina. He visited Auburn last week — right around the time Donaldson entered the portal — and is expected to visit Florida this weekend.

Pegues played at Furman for three seasons, but he’s best known for what he did in the 2023 NCAA Tournament: Hitting a deep 3-pointer off of a wild Virginia turnover to pull off the 13-over-4 upset.

Furman didn’t get back to the NCAA Tournament in 2024, but Pegues still put together a memorable All-SoCon season. He averaged 18.4 points, 4.8 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game. His 27% assist rate ranked inside the top 150 nationally, and his assist-to-turnover ratio was well over 2-to-1. That is close to the best of both Donaldson (assist rate) and Holloway (A/TO ratio) from this past season.

Pegues is a three-level scorer, and he does it with great consistency. He had 15 different 20-point games. He scored 30-plus points in two road games in late February, both within a week of each other. One of his top KenPom player comparisons is Joseph Girard, who helped Clemson run all the way to the Elite Eight.

Pegues shot nearly 36% from 3-point range, and he had six different games in which he hit five or more triples. His top four long-range shooting performances all came away from home, which is pretty impressive. Pegues also made 13 triples of deeper than 25 feet, showcasing the logo range that Auburn has utilized in recent years.

Pegues shot 56% at the rim — a good number for a smaller point guard. (By comparison, Holloway shot 35.1% at the rim this season, while the 6-foot-3 Donaldson shot 59%.) He’s a strong finisher off of ball-screens, sitting in the 84th percentile nationally in points per possession on those plays.

Pegues also averages more than 1 point per possession in transition, spot-up situations and in isolation. All of those are among the top quarter of guards in the country.  

Pegues shot 87% from the free-throw line this past season, with that number jumping up to 89% in conference games. He drew an average of 4.6 fouls per 40 minutes, which would have ranked No. 3 at Auburn this season behind Broome and Chad Baker-Mazara. He also shot 40% on midrange jumpers, which is comparable to the work that Donaldson did on those shots this past season.

On top of all of that, Pegues has been a solid defender for the Paladins. He averaged more than a steal per game, and he has had three straight seasons of double-digits in defensive rebounding rate. His offensive game is his calling card, but his defensive metrics took a sizable leap in his third season with Furman.

Pegues is an experienced point guard who has strong efficiency in both scoring and playmaking. Auburn’s staff got an up-close view of him before last season, and he’s being coveted by other SEC programs who were also in the NCAA Tournament.

“I want a school that prioritizes winning,” Pegues said after his visit, per Jason Caldwell of Auburn Undercover. “A school that values connections and relationships. A school that is going to allow me to continue to be the leader that I have always been.”

---

Myles Rice: A remarkable player with an Auburn tie

If you watched any of the Pac-12’s final season of basketball, you’re probably familiar with Rice. But, even if you didn’t, you might know the name.

Rice played his high school ball at Sandy Creek in Georgia, and he played in AAU with the famed Atlanta Celtics. Jabari Smith was his teammate. As a senior at Sandy Creek, the 6-foot-3 point guard averaged 19.1 points, 6.0 assists, 4.5 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game.

A 3-star recruit, Rice started his career at Washington State. After redshirting during the 2021-22 season — while Smith was starring for Auburn — Rice was diagnosed with a form of Hodgkin’s lymphoma and missed the entire 2022-23 season.

“I just truly believe that I'm one of those ones that was supposed to go through that,” Rice said in February, per Matt Norlander of CBS Sports. “That's truly a blessing from God and he puts us in situations that we may not be ready for. We are ready for it, but we might not see it in our minds, but in the grand scheme of things, we're always prepared for it.”

Following that victory over cancer, Rice led Washington State to plenty of victories on the hardwood. He was the Pac-12’s final Rookie of the Year and a first-team all-league selection, averaging 14.8 points and 3.8 assists per game for a Cougars program that went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2008.

Rice entered the transfer portal in late March, after the Cougars’ run ended with a loss to Iowa State in the second round. The word is that Auburn is in the mix with Indiana and Texas A&M for his commitment.

Like Pegues, Rice is a consistent bucket-getter. He had 15 different games of 15-plus points this past season, including six 20-point outings and a 35-pointer at Stanford. Rice scored in single figures just eight times all season, and he scored at least seven in all but one of those games.

Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way: Yes, Rice shot 27.5% from 3-point range. That’s a rough number, but it comes with some context. Rice went through a brutal slump late in the season, going 0-22 from deep over the span of seven games.

Before that, he shot 33% from deep, which is what he shot over the course of two NCAA Tournament games. The efficiency wasn’t great, but he hit multiple 3-pointers in 10 different games and had a phenomenal early-season stretch in which he shot nearly 50% from deep on 4.5 attempts per game. He can heat up.

But Rice made up for not being a 3-point deadeye with his ability to attack the basket. More than a third of his shot attempts came at the rim, and Rice hit 63% of them. Rice shot 50% or better from 2 in more than half of his games, and he scored double-digit points off of 2s alone in 16 matchups. That’s impressive inside scoring.

Rice also shot above 40% on 2-point jumpers, with the vast majority of them coming off of the dribble. He was in the 89th percentile nationally in isolation points per possession, and he also averaged 1.15 points per possession in transition.

As a point guard, Rice’s assist rate of 22.7% ranked inside the top 300 nationally. He had a higher turnover rate than Pegues, but it was still below 20% for the season.

Rice was a disruptor on defense, too, averaging 1.6 steals per game. His steal rate was inside the top 250 nationally.

His defensive rating (101.6), defensive win shares (1.9) and defensive box plus/minus (+2.6) are among the best of any guard currently in the transfer portal. He’s coming from a Wazzu team that was No. 26 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency this season, per KenPom. Like Auburn, the Cougars were strong in limiting 3-point attempts and assists from their opponents. It’s a good scheme fit on defense.

While Rice has only played one season of college basketball, he’s still an older guard who has already been a major difference-maker on an NCAA Tournament team in a power conference.

Rice made a considerable two-way impact for Washington State this past season, and his low 3-point percentage isn’t necessarily a case of a guard who can’t hit triples at a good clip. He’s a tough scorer who can get his own shot and a gifted playmaker on both ends of the floor.

Smith’s former teammate makes a lot of sense for what Auburn wants in a point guard. His consistency would be a boost for the Tigers’ backcourt, and he wouldn’t have to make a massive transition to the SEC like many mid-major guards.

5-star Tahaad Pettiford (Instagram)

Tahaad Pettiford: An option who is already in-house

On March 28, I asked Pearl about Pettiford and how he fit into Auburn’s roster plans.

Here is Pearl’s full response:

“It's a really good time and a really good question. Tahaad's not a point guard. He's got the size of a point guard, but everyone assumed Tahaad was going to come in and be our point guard. He's not. Tahaad is a scorer. He is an incredible athlete. He can make plays on both ends of the floor. He's going to be one of the fastest, quickest, most explosive little guards I've ever had. But he's not a true point guard.

“Can he play some? He might. I actually think early in his career, I think I'm going to try to play him off the ball and let him do what he does: get buckets. Get buckets… which may help you understand why the roster has moved a little bit in the position it's moved now.”

Auburn’s plan to play Pettiford in an off-ball role made plenty of sense when the Tigers had both Holloway and Donaldson on the roster.

But will their departures cause Auburn to change course and put Pettiford at the 1?

The fact that Auburn is recruiting transfers such as Pegues and Rice — and there could be more in the future — shows that it wants to prioritize getting an experienced floor general for the 2024-25 season. It doesn’t look like the Tigers want to make Pettiford the guy at point guard right away.

And that also makes sense. Pettiford is more of a scorer than a playmaker, and Auburn just went through a season in which it had a lot of youth at the point guard spot.

Pettiford could play the 1 at times, but there’s value in letting the McDonald’s All-American come in and carve out a role without the pressure of being the top point guard in a college basketball environment that is getting older by the season.

Having Pettiford signed means that Auburn isn’t completely out of options at the point guard spot. (Denver Jones can also moonlight at the position, as he showed this past season.) He’s a great security blanket for the Tigers to have as they push to bring in a top name at the position for their upcoming season.

PG Tre Donaldson (Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

A final scenario to consider…

Again, the options currently available in the transfer portal aren’t the only ones that will be out there in this cycle. New talent is joining daily, especially as the coaching carousel spins even quicker with John Calipari’s departure from Kentucky to Arkansas.

Pegues and Rice are the top names to watch — and two of the best point guards available — but that doesn’t mean the Tigers can’t go after others later.

But the transfer portal entrances of both Holloway and Donaldson need to come with a reminder: Just because a player is in there, it doesn’t mean he’s gone for good.

Auburn’s point guard situation made it likely that one of either Holloway or Donaldson would enter the portal this offseason. Losing both changes things.

Pearl’s roster-building strategy over the last several seasons has been a mix of developing high-school recruits and plugging-and-playing transfers.

Leaning toward the former too much can make for an overwhelmed and inexperienced roster, and leaning toward the latter too much can neglect instant-impact young talent. Back-to-back national champion UConn is a perfect example of blending both blue-chips and program fits through the portal.

Auburn is going to need two point guards for the 2024-25 season, as no one can play all 40 minutes at the position every single night. The Tigers might not split the playing time as evenly as they did this season, but Pearl’s style is to play a deep bench and maximize the two-way intensity of whoever is on the floor.

Donaldson and Holloway are both players who could find opportunities to start and command heavy minutes elsewhere. It’s understandable for each of them to seek out opportunities, particularly if Auburn snags a transfer point guard out of the portal. The NIL market should be strong for both players.

But if Auburn could convince one of them to withdraw from the portal and stay on the Plains, the backcourt would be much more solid. The Tigers would also be able to lean on a point guard who has played and been developed in this system, rather than hitting the total reset button at the 1.

The vast majority of players who enter the portal don’t come back. Still, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. There are a lot of moving parts, and it’s a process that can be tough on coaches trying to manage a roster.

“Man, there's no advantage of being 64 years old right now and having done this since 1978,” Pearl said in late March. “It's completely different. … We're not in control of everything. The combination of the NIL and the transfer portal and the automatic eligibility right away, that's just uncharted waters for all of us.

“Now what we have created with the transfer thing is, at the end of every year, everybody can stay and everybody can leave, and there’s just no order to it.”

Auburn could go in a wide range of directions with its point guard spot for next season. While there are other major roster questions, this one is massive.