The return of #AuburnFast... in basketball

Bruce Pearl's Tigers were built to dominate in the half-court last season. That should change with a roster that's built to run-and-gun.

(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)

AUBURN — Remember #AuburnFast? You know, when hashtags were still a thing?

Auburn football used to market itself with that branding, pointing to the high-speed style of play associated with Gus Malzahn and his Hurry-Up, No-Huddle offense in the early days of his tenure. There was a whole video series dedicated to it.

Malzahn’s good friend Bruce Pearl got in on the fun, too, posting the hashtag while celebrating Auburn’s accomplishments across several sports. It also helped that it applied to the particular brand of basketball he was building on the Plains.

In Pearl’s first eight seasons at Auburn, the Tigers ranked inside the top 75 nationally in average offensive possession length. That is, the Tigers were among the top 20-25% fastest offenses in Division I college basketball, per KenPom numbers.

That ranking peaked at No. 12 in 2016-17, the debut season of lightning fast floor general Jared Harper and the year before Auburn made its championship-winning, NCAA Tournament-appearing breakthrough.

Basketball continues to get faster and faster. The NBA is a pace-and-space league, and that has carried over to the collegiate game.

For example, Auburn ranked No. 68 nationally in average offensive possession length during Pearl’s first season at 17.4 seconds. The Tigers averaged that exact same time this past season, but it was only good enough for No. 138 in the country.

In fact, Auburn has been outside of the top 125 in offensive possession length in two of its last three seasons. Those are the only times they’ve been anywhere near that low — extreme outliers for what we’ve come to expect from a Pearl-led team.

It’s no secret that Auburn didn’t play an up-tempo brand of basketball last season, which will go down as the program’s most successful campaign to date. While Pearl has been known for his fast-paced teams throughout his coaching career, he’s also been willing to adapt and reengineer based on the talent at his disposal.

And Pearl might be doing that again — just in the opposite direction — ahead of a 2025-26 campaign in which he’ll have almost an entirely new roster, save for one important exception.

“I will have to evaluate this team and decide how we’re going to play,” Pearl said last month. “We might have to play faster than we did, we’re not going to be as big, so we’re going have to play faster and quicker maybe, but we’ll see.

“We’ve got some things that we’re working on.”