For all the drama Auburn’s recent courting of multiple 5-star players brought, Bruce Pearl and company are still set up with an elite recruiting class after another commitment Thursday.
Following 4-star center Dylan Cardwell’s (Powder Springs, Ga.) verbal pledge to the Tigers, Pearl’s 2020 class jumped two spots in the Rivals team rankings from No. 9 to No. 7. Only Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Oklahoma State, Tennessee and LSU are ahead.
Auburn’s other 2020 commits (top-20 overall player Sharife Cooper, top-10 power forward JT Thor, top-25 power forward Chris Moore and top-50 shooting guard Justin Powell) had already made up the highest-rated group in program history. Last season’s class, which included probable 2020 NBA draft lottery pick Isaac Okoro and finished No. 9 in the Rivals team rankings, was Pearl’s previous best during his AU tenure.
Cardwell, who, at 18 years old, is already a powerful, 6-foot-11 center that Pearl hopes to mold into an Austin Wiley type for the future, absorbs Auburn’s penultimate scholarship for 2020-21. If Auburn had, say, landed 5-star prospects Jalen Green (signed with the NBA G League’s new developmental program) or Greg Brown (committed to Shaka Smart’s Texas Longhorns team) last month, Pearl’s recruiting endeavors for this class would be over.
But there’s still one open spot for this year’s roster.
If Auburn fans had their way, the No. 1 overall player in 2021, Jonathan Kuminga, would reclassify to 2020 as he’s been considering and would come aboard this year’s class. But even if the small forward were to move up a year, Pearl would have to fight off a host of other suitors — and Kuminga still hasn’t released the top 5 schools left in his recruitment, though it’s assumed Auburn will be among those.
If that scenario plays out perfectly for Auburn, it would undoubtedly ensure the program’s first top-5 class. Alternatively, Auburn was actively shopping the transfer market last month, and Pearl has expressed his desire to bring in an experienced player since his lineup will mostly be freshmen and sophomores next season.
The 2020 basketball signing period ends Aug. 1.
In the past, Auburn has added players late into the summer, as JUCO transfer J’Von McCormick committed June 12, 2018, and rising sophomore Devan Cambridge rounded out Auburn’s 2019 class on July 17.
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