With the initial sting of Auburn's shocking NCAA Tournament loss to Miami now firmly behind him, Bruce Pearl is facing a fresh challenge.

He's attempting the fastest rebuild of his career.

The Auburn coach said Monday that his staff already is hard at work replenishing a roster that lost its top two players and a valuable reserve during the past week. He needs scoring. He needs rim protection. He needs rebounding. He needs star power.

His biggest need of all, however, is shooting.

"If we shot the ball better, we would’ve gone much further in the tournament," Pearl said Wednesday. "As a team, we defended well. I thought we played pretty well, I thought we shared OK, but we shot it like shit. So that’s something that’s got to improve."

Auburn shot 31.8 percent from long range last season, which placed them among the bottom third of all Division I teams. The team shot 27 percent from three-point range during the postseason and went 5-of-26 in the loss to Miami.

Forward Jabari Smith, who declared for the NBA Draft earlier this week, was the team's top three-point shooter. Point guard Zep Jasper is the only returning member of the team's primary rotation who shot better than 32 percent from long range.

That must change. Pearl knows.

Yet he's not in a hurry to address the shortage. Pearl said his first move was to find a synergistic player capable of both blending in with and supplementing the Tigers' frontcourt veterans — center Dylan Cardwell, center Stretch Akingbola and forward Jaylin Williams.

That was addressed last week when Auburn snagged a commitment from 5-star recruit Yohan Traore, who previously had been committed to LSU. Pearl wasn't able to speak with reporters on the record about Traore Wednesday because the 6-foot-11 forward cannot sign with the Tigers until April 13.

Still, Pearl is enthused about the situation.

"Let’s just say I’ve got one more (scholarship) available on the frontline," Pearl said. "It’s got to be people that will complement those three returning players. And we’ve actually passed on some pretty good players that we just didn’t feel like complemented them."

With Traore in place, Pearl and his staff will being seeking at least one player — and perhaps two — who can provide shooting support at the wing position. Current wing Al Flanigan appears set to return after a disappointing season that saw him shoot just 21 percent from long range.

Incoming freshman Chance Westry is 6-foot-6 and a major defensive asset, but isn't known for his long-range shooting.

The transfer portal must yield Auburn's bounty.

"The transfer portal was a really good thing for us last year," Pearl said. "I don’t like that there are three-and-a-half players per team in the portal. I’d rather teach them to fight than flee, but that’s OK. The portal was great to us last year; we had some guys leave and had some guys come in. We helped ourselves on both ends."