Bruce Pearl believes Auburn will be 'the hardest team in the league to predict'

Fresh off the second run to the Final Four in program history, Auburn is a major question mark heading into the 2025-26 season.

The Tigers lost their entire starting lineup from last season, consisting of Miles Kelly (out of eligibility), Denver Jones (out of eligibility), Chad Baker-Mazara (transferred to USC), Johni Broome (out of eligibility) and Dylan Cardwell (out of eligibility).

Due to this uncertainty, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl labeled his team as ‘the hardest team in the [SEC] to predict’ during an appearance on “The Sideline with Andy Katz.”

“We’ll be the hardest team in the league to predict,” Pearl said. “We’ll be picked anywhere from fourth to ninth or tenth easy. It’s just because we have so many new pieces and I understand that. So at point guard it’ll be Tahaad [Pettiford] or Kaden Magwood or a little bit of both. Kaden’s a very talented freshman. He’s a good player and I also thought he was an underrated kid coming out of high school. And Tahaad will obviously be asked to do more.”

In what was a stellar freshman campaign, Pettiford played in 38 games (one start) and averaged 22.9 minutes per game as a key player for the Tigers last season. He finished the season averaging 11.6 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game. Magwood was On3’s No. 62 ranked player in the Class of 2025.

Pearl raves about Elijah Freeman and Keyshawn Hall

“Kevin Overton, who was the sixth man at Texas Tech and was a 3&D guy, has a solid chance to be able to play a lot for us at the two,” Pearl continued. “Also, Simon Walker and Abdul Bashir. Simon’s a freshman and Abdul was a sophomore junior college player. Was the leading scorer at junior college. They can both score and they can both really play and they’ll compete for the position.”

Overton brings NCAA Tournament experience to a somewhat young team, as he averaged 5.3 points per game in Texas Tech’s four tournament games last season. He’s joined at the position by freshman Simon Walker (On3’s No. 2 ranked player in state of Alabama in Class of 2025) and Abdul Bashir, who scored 843 points last season at Casper College.

“Elyjah Freeman could be a sleeper. He was a Division II player like K.D. Johnson. I thought he was one of the best D players in the country. He’s got an NBA body and he’s going to be a pro. It’s gonna take him a year or two but boy he’s really, really talented. He’ll compete with Keyshawn Hall for that three spot. Keyshawn Hall can also play some undersized four because he’s just a bucket getter. He was the leading scorer in the Big 12 and he’ll shoot as many free throws as anyone in the SEC. Hall can shoot it from three and really attack you one on one. He wanted to come to Auburn to get better defensively.”

Pearl mentioned just a few players, but the roster has almost completely turned over. Pettiford, Blake Muschalek, CJ Williams, Reed Trapp and Drake Caldwell are just the lone returning players from the Final Four roster. Pettiford was the lone player to contribute actual minutes however.