Auburn Basketball Star Took Himself Out Of The Game On Purpose To Shut Down Culture Problem

Auburn senior guard Chad Baker-Mazara is averaging more than 22 minutes per game during the 2024 college basketball season. However, he actually took himself out of Sunday’s blowout win over Richmond and played only 19 minutes on purpose.

It was a selfless act that received high praise from head coach Bruce Pearl.

The Tigers are currently ranked No. 2 in the country after a bizarre start to the year. Multiple players were involved in some kind of scuffle on Auburn’s trip to Houston at the beginning of November. The episode has been described as a “fight,” a “physical altercation,” and “horseplay” but nobody knows exactly how it all went down. Whatever took place on the private jet caused concern amongst the flight staff, which led the pilot to turn around and land back at the original point of departure.

As soon as this unusual news made headlines, fans and analysts immediately wrote off the Tigers. They had a culture problem. There was no way the aforementioned plane incident did not serve as a bad omen of what was to come.

Well, it didn’t! Auburn is really good.

Pearl’s team is 8-1 with only a six-point loss on the road at Duke. To go even one step further, it sounds like the culture on The Plains is actually pretty strong.

Baker-Mazara finished with 13 points, six rebounds and five assists during a dominant 34-point win over the Spiders on Sunday afternoon. He could’ve scored even more if he stayed in the game. The senior told Pearl to reduce his minutes so four-star freshman Jahki Howard could play a larger role.