NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Auburn locker room doors opened, every camera that barged through formed an instant, imperfect semi-circle around senior guard Chad Baker-Mazara, and he already had the scoop on all who stood behind those cameras.
We’re talking a matter of minutes here. Maybe two or three? Yet the Tigers had passed phones around and shared laughs at coach Bruce Pearl telling ESPN’s broadcast crew: “My guards aren’t p—ies.”
“Yeah, I heard,” Baker-Mazara, still laughing, said of Pearl’s latest eye popper, uttered after No. 2 Auburn’s 62-57 win over Ole Miss on Friday in the SEC tournament quarters. “That’s coach, in the end.”
What will get lost, at least for some, is that Pearl was talking about the key to Auburn’s 3-point defense — the bigs can switch out and move their feet against perimeter players, and the guards are tough enough to handle those switches inside. Attention-grabbing vulgarity aside, Pearl was talking hoops, not other things that have been central to Auburn men’s basketball discourse of late.
You know, like the reason all those cameras went right to Baker-Mazara, to record his first public comments since his left elbow found the back of Alabama guard Chris Youngblood’s head six days earlier. That shot, intentional and inexcusable, earned Baker-Mazara a Flagrant 2 and an ejection with 10:52 left in an eventual 93-91 overtime loss.
It brought to mind his ejection, for another elbow, early in Auburn’s stunning loss to Yale in last year’s NCAA Tournament. That was a No. 13 seed over a No. 4 seed with Final Four potential. That was a game that could have been totally different with Baker-Mazara, a gangly 6-foot-7 mix of skill, tenacity, feel — and emotion.
That was the moment he was supposed to learn from, grow from, reference as a turning point while helping the Tigers on a Final Four run as a 25-year-old senior.
It’s been replaced by a worse moment, at least in terms of force and physical damage done. So, as the postseason begins, Auburn and Baker-Mazara are up for interpretation, just like their coach’s latest viral quote.
THIS EFFORT 😤 pic.twitter.com/7Cu0c7nLZc
— Auburn Basketball (@AuburnMBB) March 14, 2025
Auburn, a team that can blow through the NCAA Tournament and earn the first national championship in its history or a chaotic meltdown candidate? Yes. Baker-Mazara, an inspirational and essential piece or a guy whose inability to control himself can do more harm than good? Yes.
“So Chad, which one are we going to get?” Pearl asked rhetorically, making the point multiple times that Baker-Mazara is “too hard on himself.”
“I’m a big piece of this team, and I can help them big time,” said Baker-Mazara, who does a little bit of everything for Auburn (28-4) and is second on the team with 12.7 points per game. “At the same time, I can hurt them big time.”
He was asked if he has grown since the Yale game.
“I don’t know,” he said, “that’s for you guys to tell me.”
Well, actually, you’d probably be a better source.
“I feel like I have a little bit, learned from my mistakes,” he said. “But we’re all not perfect and we all make mistakes all our life.”
This one prompted Pearl to bring Baker-Mazara off the bench on Friday. Pearl said that was more “symbolic” as a message of accountability for the team than it was a punishment.
“Something to help me reflect on my past actions,” Baker-Mazara said. “You know, it was something good that happened at the end of the day, to be honest.”
Baker-Mazara did what he does, which is a little bit of everything. He put a crossover on Davon Barnes and hit a stepback 3-pointer to halt an Ole Miss run. He got a steal to add to his team-leading total of 38. He got free for a breakaway dunk, plus the foul, and while pulling his jersey forward to show off the “Auburn,” made eye contact with his mother, Carmen Mazara, who raised him in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
When it got dicey late, Baker-Mazara got a couple of his team-high six assists on side ball screens with national player of the year candidate Johni Broome (23 points, 15 rebounds). In both cases, as in an earlier lob for a Broome dunk, Baker-Mazara led Broome with perfect touch into finishes. He also had a hand in the dicey nature of the finish with a turnover on an inbounds pass. And, as always, he gave and received extra little slaps and shoves while trying to carve out and deny space on the floor. This is basketball — especially, it seems, in the vicinity of Chad Baker-Mazara.
The Tigers don’t believe that’s a coincidence or all on him.
“The scout is out now,” Auburn senior guard Chris Moore said of teams recognizing and trying to exploit Baker-Mazara’s combustible tendencies. “Anything to try to get somebody off their game.”
“How much do teams do it? A lot,” Auburn senior center Dylan Cardwell said. “But I mean, he’s got to be smarter. He’s got to know going in that he’s important and that people are gonna target him. That’s what Yale did, that’s what a lot of other teams are gonna do. He has to just walk away. Walk away. You know, if it says on a scouting report that someone’s a hothead, go at them. That’s not dirty at all. Everything’s fair in war. I just think he has to calm down quicker.”
Said Baker-Mazara: “Yeah, that’s something that teams do. I’ve personally heard a coach say, ‘Go hit him.’ I’m not gonna disclose any names. But you know, just bring it on. I’m just trying to win a game at the end of the day. They’re trying to (talk) all the antics, but if you’ve really seen who’s got the antics going on toward me, that’s all I’ve got to say.”
Moore, a mentor to Baker-Mazara who essentially lost his spot in the rotation to him last season, had a long talk with him after the Yale loss. Baker-Mazara obviously felt terrible about it. Moore said Baker-Mazara — a bundle of smiles, affability and goofiness off the court — is “one of the best human beings I’ve ever met” and someone who “just wants it so bad.”
“The same Chad you guys see out there is the same Chad we get in the locker room,” Cardwell said. “He is not different at all. He’s a great listener, I will say that. He’s a great listener, and he accepts the coaching. When he falls short, he is remorseful. I will say that. And that’s the biggest thing I’ve seen in him. He wants to be better for the team. He wants to be better for this group of guys. He doesn’t want to put us in the position we were in last year ever again.”
But there’s understanding the situation, grasping the consequences, vowing to be better and then actually encountering those moments.
“His moods do swing,” Pearl said. “They do.”
The past week has been a lively one online in the Alabama-Auburn rivalry. Fans on both sides have been posting slowed-down, zoomed-in game footage to make sure no cheap shots from the teams’ two meetings this season go unnoticed. Baker-Mazara and Youngblood have been featured, as bully and bullying target depending on which side was doing the posting.
“Both of them should have just had a play date and made up, that’s all,” Cardwell joked. But seriously, this can’t happen anymore and they all know it.
Baker-Mazara has told them it won’t. Through one game, with eight more intended, his words can only be interpreted as sincere.
“He’s learned a lot,” Cardwell said, “and you’re going to see it moving forward.”
(Photo: Jake Crandall/ USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
