The Stretch 4: Why Tahaad Pettiford is *not* a point guard for Auburn

Bruce Pearl is looking to play his newest 5-star in an off-ball role on the Plains. Here's more on that and the future of the Tigers' roster.

5-star signee Tahaad Pettiford (Instagram)

Bruce Pearl had a lot to get off of his chest on Thursday.

He would rather have been in his hometown of Boston, gearing up for a Sweet 16 matchup against No. 1 overall seed UConn. But Auburn got knocked out of the NCAA Tournament in the first round by Yale, sending the Tigers home earlier than expected.

Pearl and his staff have been hard at work since they got back to the Plains at 4 a.m. last Saturday morning. They’ve evaluated transfer portal targets, held end-of-season meetings with current players and gone on recruiting visits. Pearl himself had been out recruiting for several days, coming back briefly to Auburn on Wednesday night before hitting the road again Thursday.

However, he made a point to address the media — and, in turn, Auburn fans at large — during all that travel. His opening statement was more than nine minutes long.

Pearl spent a chunk of it rehashing what went wrong for Auburn in the loss to Yale. He then pivoted to a passionate defense of Chad Baker-Mazara from people who have continued to pile on him for his early ejection in that loss.

“What a really difficult way to learn from that mistake,” Pearl said. “At the same time, I would also like to remind our fans and anybody listening that Chad owned up to that mistake. And he's apologized for that mistake. And he's taken responsibility for it, although the consequences were really, really significant. And he feels really bad. He's struggling with that right now.

“I'm just going to tell the Auburn family, while I know you're disappointed — if somebody was messing with your son, you'd stand up for your son a little bit, wouldn't you? Stop messing with my son. Stop it. He apologized. He made a mistake. And I'm calling you out. I'm not having it. For those on social media that want to continue, unfollow those people. Stop it.”

A little while later, Pearl extended that passionate defense to his entire team.

“It was a great season,” Pearl said. “They won a championship. The fourth team in seven years — the fourth different team in seven years — to win a championship in the SEC. SEC championships matter. They matter to me. I think they matter to our fans. I think they matter to the Auburn family. And I don't know that anybody over the last seven years in the SEC can say that four different teams have won championships.

“At the end of the day, if that's not good enough, I don't know what is. And our guys are a little sensitive to it. And here's the last thing: I'm not asking anybody to kiss my ass, OK? I'm not. You want to write good things or say good things, great. I hope I'll work really hard to earn those things. And I will give, at some point — maybe it's in the future, maybe it's in the past — I'll give you reason to criticize. … But this was a great team at Auburn, and I'm very proud of them.”

And all of that was before he even took his first question.

The rest of Pearl’s time with the media gave a lot of insight into the future of Auburn basketball, from the roster moves that have already happened to what could be down the road for a program that wants to go further next season.

In this edition of The Stretch 4, we’ll take a look at four big pieces of news that came out of this end-of-season press conference — starting with a significant one as it relates to an evolving backcourt.

5-star signee Tahaad Pettiford (Instagram)

Why Tahaad Pettiford is not a point guard for Auburn

One of the biggest questions facing Auburn basketball this offseason was how it would handle the point guard spot. (I even spent a long time writing about that topic in the roster tracker and this week’s mailbag.)

Aden Holloway and Tre Donaldson were in an almost equal timeshare at the 1 this past season. The impending arrival of 5-star Tahaad Pettiford — the No. 1 point guard in the country, per the 247Sports Composite — appeared to potentially complicate things even more at the position.

So, when I asked Pearl about how Auburn would handle that, he was pretty clear with his response: