It may not seem like long ago that Auburn basketball was headed to the Final Four, but two seasons later, only three members of that roster remain with the Tigers.
Even looking at the Auburn basketball roster from a season ago, Auburn will have to replace its entire starting five and its sixth man, Anfernee McLemore.
Now entering the 2020-21 season, a younger team will step onto the court for Bruce Pearl this year.
“We have 12 guys on scholarship, 10 of them are underclassmen, freshmen and sophomores,” Pearl said. “This is the youngest team I’ve had since I’ve been a Division I basketball coach.”
The roster this season consists of five freshmen, eight sophomores and three juniors. Pearl’s team might be young entering this season, but the coach has been impressed with the effort that he has seen in practice.
“The kids have been training really hard,” Pearl said. “I really like my team. I really like the effort. I like the competition. I like the work ethic. We have got a lot to learn. We have very little experience.”
Pearl is not expecting the Tigers to enter the season with a lot of preseason hype. Over the past two seasons, Auburn has been predicted to finish third and fourth, respectively, in the SEC preseason media poll.
“I have an idea that we are going to be picked to the middle or lower half of the league because we are young and very inexperienced and not tested,” Pearl said.
While the Tigers are not entirely sure when the season will begin and what it will look like, Pearl knows his young team will need to learn quickly to keep up with the rest of the SEC.
“We’ve got just a ton to learn, a ton of catching up to do and we are going to have to get better throughout the season if we are going to be a competitive team this year, if we are going to be an NCAA tournament team this year.”
Now, Auburn will continue to practice and get ready for the season. Pearl believes the season opener might occur on Nov. 25, but the Tigers will continue to be flexible.
Pearl will turn his attention to finding out what the Tigers are made of and who will make up his rotation.
“As we start practices right now, I’ve had enough practices where in a normal year, even last year, I had a much better idea of who my starting five would be than I do this year, by virtue of effect that I had five or six guys that were head and shoulders above the rest,” Pearl said. “The good news is that we have got a lot of parity. We have good competition.”
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Jake Weese, senior in journalism with a minor in history, is The Plainsman's sports editor.
