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It’s the last week of May so obviously we were all expecting big Auburn Basketball news, right?
There has been a flurry of tweets today as we reach the deadline for players to opt in or out of the NBA draft, and I am going to try to summarize what we know so far for Auburn Basketball.
AUSTIN WILEY BACK
Please, we value all of our Auburn students and anticipate their return, regardless of whether they are 6-foot-11 and MY GOD WE ARE GOING UNDEFEATED AND WINNING THE NAT’L TITLE NEXT YEAR
— John Carvalho (@John_P_Carvalho) May 29, 2018
That basically sums up how #AUBURNTWITTER reacted to the news. When the big man announced his intentions to return, we all got stars in our eyes imagining big number 50 doing chin-ups on the rim at Auburn Arena next year. The one thing this team needed down the stretch last season was the ability to pound the rock inside to get easy points when the threes weren’t falling. Wiley will deliver that.
Unfortunately, we have basically zero footage of him playing basketball since his freshman year, but just watch this and imagine:
I’ll take 1-5 pick and rolls with Wiley and Harper please and thank you.
Something weird is happening with ‘Staph
According to @AdamZagoria, Mustapha Heron won't stay in the NBA Draft, but he is transferring from Auburn. https://t.co/ffOSXHq9T8
— Justin Ferguson (@JFergusonAU) May 29, 2018
Why transfer and sit out a full season? This makes zero sense to me. Then the news comes that this is the same guy who reported Heron was transferring LAST SEASON, and now I don’t know what to believe. Maybe this is FAKE NEWS. Maybe he transfers down a division so he can play right away, but that wouldn’t help his draft stock at all. ‘Staph was my favorite player on the team last season, and this bums me out, but I am going to take a wait-and-see approach to Mustapha Heron’s future.
UPDATE (1:30pmCDT): It appears legit. I am still super confused as to why he would want to do this. Why leave a contender to transfer and risk missing an entire year?
UPDATED STORY: Auburn HC Bruce Pearl confirms the news to @MGMAdvertiser that leading scorer Mustapha Heron's intends to transfer away from the Tigers program - https://t.co/tBSOCG1tR1 pic.twitter.com/Xb3GNRKAFu
— Matthew Stevens (@matthewcstevens) May 29, 2018
BRYCE BACK
Ring Chasin’ , See you in November at Auburn Arena Auburn Family! WarEagle pic.twitter.com/Lwn0Hw7FJf
— Bryce Brown (@Bwb_2) May 29, 2018
Ring Chasin’ indeed. The SEC Champs now return a guy who has improved every year of his collegiate career on top of a 5-star big man. Let’s hope Jared Harper gives us some good news today too. There is nothing like the motivation of “Unfinished Business” to get the band back together and the team galvanized. Auburn has a chance to go 9 deep next season with almost no drop off from starters to bench. There’s a real chance the defending SEC Champs come back with considerably more talent than last year’s team. There’s a chance we could be playing in more than one “hat and t-shirt games” next season. May basketball news is the drug I didn’t know I needed.
UPDATE:
HARPER BACK
Junior Year.. Loading pic.twitter.com/awjaH6B1ec
— JARED HARPER™ (@Therealvinoo) May 29, 2018
Three out of four ain’t bad.