When addressing the members of the media Thursday night at Jimmy Rane’s annual charity banquet, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl reiterated the fact of not having a true offseason.
The Tigers signed six players out of the transfer portal to go along with the three players signed in the 2025 recruiting class.
With hopes of possibly bringing Tahaad Pettiford back and signing another center, Pearl likes the direction the 2025 roster is headed.
“You know me, there hasn’t been an offseason yet. I’m not complaining. I feel good. I don’t feel too terribly tired. We had a long season and thank God we had a long season. We played all the way into April. I have never had to replace almost my entire roster before,” Pearl said.
“We knew that this year — we knew last year had the chance to be a special team because we had a good team, veteran team, and we decided to put a lot of eggs in that basket and see if we can make a run, and we did.”
Eight of the Tigers’ scholarship players saw eligibility expire last season and three more entered the transfer portal. Pettiford declared for the NBA Draft while maintaining his eligibility.
The men’s college basketball transfer portal closed April 22nd meaning players can no longer enter the portal, unless there is a head coaching change at their school.
“As a result, we’ve had to replace a lot of folks. I think we’ve done well so far. We will absolutely be the hardest team going into next year to predict what kind of year we have. It will have to be a team that gets better throughout the season because they are brand spankin’ new.”
Auburn added frontcourt players like KeShawn Murphy, Emeka Opurum and Sebastian Williams-Adams.
The backcourt will feature incoming freshmen Kaden Magwood and Simon Walker. The wing additions of Keyshawn Hall, Kevin Overton, Elyjah Freeman and Abdul Bashir will be the main source of offense for the Tigers this season.
Jerry Humphrey III covers Auburn sports forAL.com. You can follow him on X at @Jerryhump3or email him at JHumphreyIII@al.com.
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