Auburn officially hires GM to Bruce Pearl’s staff

Auburn has joined the ranks of programs making changes to the structure of its college basketball program. That involves the Tigers hiring a general manager for Bruce Pearl, with Auburn landing a former assistant of Pearl for the role.

On Friday, the Tigers announced the hiring of Matt Gatens to the post of GM with the responsibilities of roster management and evaluation, agent and donor relations, scouting, recruiting and game planning. Gatens was a member of Pearl’s staff at Auburn from 2016-18, and he returns to help guide the Tigers entering the new era of revenue-sharing for student-athletes.

“The key to my success has been surrounding our program with good people,” Pearl said via press release. “I’ve known Matt since the day he was born as his parents were friends of mine when I was an assistant at Iowa. Matt’s first job after his professional playing career was as a graduate assistant here at Auburn. He went off to do great things as an assistant coach and put himself in a position to potentially be named Iowa’s head coach last year. It’s great to have Matt and his family back in Auburn.”

As a player, Gatens was a standout performer for Iowa, finishing as the program’s 10th all-time leading scorer. He most recently spent time as an assistant for the Hawkeyes and also has worked at Drake.

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“It’s a new role, and it’s a role a lot of programs are adding across the country,” said Gatens in a video published by Auburn. “For me, I’d still be involved in the basketball side of things, but taking on a little more responsibility with that GM title of roster management, evaluation and portal, talking with agents and that side of the game as well.

“I think it’s great for me to expand my knowledge on that side of that, but take what I’ve grown doing a lot of those things already and bringing it here and helping the team win in any way possible.”

Auburn is coming off a 2nd trip to the Final Four under Pearl and the best season ever in the program’s history. Now, the Tigers are loading up with a key figure in the GM role for the brave new world ahead.

Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.