Aubserver Mailbag 162: What might Auburn want in the transfer portal?
This week: The PG situation, Johni Broome, the Selection Committee, hope for football's offense and your Atlanta Braves
(Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers)
Welcome back to the mailbag here at The Auburn Observer. It’s been a while.
Timing is everything, as we’ve learned since our last ‘bag. Auburn basketball caught fire at the right time to win the SEC Tournament, but an early ejection and missed opportunities cost the Tigers from keeping that going in the NCAA Tournament.
We’re running this mailbag on a Thursday morning instead of the usual Friday morning slot because, as is often the case, schedules get shifted.
This time, it’s because Bruce Pearl is going to talk to the media in an end-of-season press conference late Wednesday morning — a few hours after this mailbag is sent.
Pearl will likely have some insight and even a few answers to the questions that are posed in here about Auburn basketball’s future. We’ll take on a lot of those, plus a big-picture question about Auburn football’s offense.
And, since timing is everything, this mailbag was going to be out just in time for Opening Day for the Atlanta Braves. Weather in Philly has pushed that back to Friday. But we’re still going to send these takes out into the universe.
Let’s go.
What basketball transfers do you think Auburn is targeting the most?
AUtlanta
Even if Auburn doesn’t go with quite as deep of a bench next season in terms of minute allocation, it’s at least going to want to have two of everything. There are holes at shooting guard (K.D. Johnson) and power forward (Jaylin Williams), and if Johni Broome goes pro, there will be another clear one at center.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Auburn basketball has reportedly reached out to at least 14 players who are currently in the transfer portal. I’ve got notes on each of them in the Roster Tracker.
Eight of them would be considered off-ball guards. Four of them look like they would likely be power forwards in Auburn’s system, although a couple could swing down to small forward. One of them is a pure point guard, and the other one is a true center.
With KDJ leaving the program, it’s clear that Auburn is wanting to add another scoring weapon to a backcourt that is set to return Denver Jones and Chad Baker-Mazara. Some are smaller combo guards like Furman’s J.P. Pegues and UTSA’s Jordan Ivy-Curry, while others such as James Madison’s Terrence Edwards Jr. and Furman’s Marcus Foster look like they could play the 2 or the 3 on the Plains. But the vast majority of them averaged at least 17 points per game last season, so you can tell that Auburn is prioritizing offense here.
The power forward spot is the most intriguing one, in my opinion. Chaney Johnson looks like a player who could blossom into a starter-quality weapon at the SEC level, based on what he showed in the second half of the season. Auburn has reached out to a true stretch 4 in UNC Greensboro’s Mikeal Brown-Jones, a 6-foot-7 deadeye in Belmont’s Cade Tyson, a very familiar athletic archetype in Hampton’s Jerry Deng and a rebounding machine in Youngstown State’s D.J. Burns. Replacing Williams’ production won’t be easy, and Johnson can’t do it alone. The mix-and-match options here are endless.
Auburn hasn’t been linked to a true center outside of Rutgers’ Clifford Omoruyi, who the Tigers recruited out of high school in New Jersey. Dylan Cardwell could return, but Auburn is going to need another big man who can command a large amount of minutes if Broome indeed goes to the NBA. Additionally, UT Martin’s Jordan Sears is the only transfer target I’ve seen who is a surefire point guard and nothing else — which makes sense, considering Auburn’s current options at the 1.
The transfer portal movement isn’t anywhere near finished yet, so all of this could change in an instant. But, until Auburn knows the status of its centers for sure, I think the priorities are boosting the guard play and finding another power forward. So far, the Tigers’ reported transfer contacts line up with that strategy.
Is it realistic to think about having Donaldson, Holloway, and Pettiford on the roster? How might that work, rotation-wise?
Amorak