Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl after 85-70 win over Ole Miss. Matthew Stevens
AUBURN – Bruce Pearl now knows there isn’t any further time left to allow Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy to gradually play their way back into form.
If the two ineligible former starters on the Auburn men’s basketball program ever have their amateur status reinstated by the NCAA, they’ll have to be ready to immediately rejoin an already more-than functional 9-10 player rotation.
“They’re staying ready and we’ll face that when the time comes,” the Tigers head coach said on Jan. 4. “They’re still trying to certify their eligibility with the NCAA.”
Auburn has announced Wiley and Purifoy will continue to be ineligible for games in the 2017-18 season after concerns regarding their eligibility were discovered from the fallout behind allegations in the federal indictment of former assistant coach Chuck Person.
Despite a 15-1 start, which nearly matches the program’s best start in school history, Pearl said that because Wiley and Purifoy have been practicing with the scout team throughout the last three months, he expects them to be ready to play the minute Auburn athletics compliance informs them of any status change.
In a media conference Thursday morning before No. 22 Auburn (15-1, 3-0) travels to Mississippi State this weekend. Pearl more than allowed for the possibility of the return of both players before the end of the 2017-18 regular season.
“I still know that we're working with the NCAA through that process,” Pearl said Thursday morning. “I think it's still a possibility.”
Pearl said in November he was “confident” that the investigation will be concluded soon but sources inside the office of Auburn University president Steven Leath have said the matter can’t reach a conclusion and the players are likely to remain ineligible until Pearl answers specific questions from university council.
Without the two frontcourt players, who were projected to be returning starters and play a major role in what was hopefully a resurgent year for Auburn basketball, Auburn has put together the nation’s second longest active win streak, achieved a national ranking for the first time in 15 years and discovered a functional chemistry that’s been noticeably lacking from Pearl’s first three years on the job.
However, Pearl has admitted he wouldn’t overlook how adding the program’s highest ranked signee who started after graduating early from high school (Wiley) or a two-year starter who is coming off an average of 11.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.4 steals in 28.7 minutes per game (Purifoy), who was being groomed into his more natural position of small forward during the team’s offseason trip to Italy.
“The adversity is the reality. The reality is we got a lot smaller real quick and then we had to overcome that,” Pearl said Thursday. “Our hearts and minds are more broken for Austin and for Danjel that they’re not able to play. Now you catch an injury, we catch foul trouble. We find ourselves in a position where we’re at Murray State and we got six guys that are available to us, and now all of a sudden it’s really affected our ability to win or lose because we’re so short as far as the body count is concerned.”
More: Pearl says ‘it breaks my heart’ Wiley & Purifoy continue to be ineligible
More: ‘No substantive changes’: Pearl indicates Wiley & Purifoy to be back for second semester
Pearl recognizes the rotation equation he’ll have to manage if Wiley or Purifoy were to be deemed eligible for a basketball program in the Top 15 of the latest Ratings Percentage Index rankings and already a Top 5 seed in numerous NCAA Tournament bracket projections this week. In order to get Purifoy minutes at the small forward spot, Mustapha Heron – the program’s leading scorer who was named SEC Player of the Year, would need to be moved to the shooting guard spot or put on the bench. If Heron were to be moved to the shooting guard spot, Auburn’s second-leading scorer Bryce Brown would likely be coming off the bench. If Wiley were eligible for games, one of the nation’s leaders in blocked shots (Anfernee McLemore) might be moved to the bench and also might mean less minutes for a developing backup forward in 6-foot-8 junior Horace Spencer.
Pearl understands how he massages this potential problem with two months to go in this regular season could determine whether Auburn finds itself in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2003.
“We had some adversity going into the season, so a lot of guys counted us out,” McLemore said on Dec. 30. “It’s up to us now to have that chip on our shoulders and come out every game showing that we can still play basketball in Auburn. We’re going to prepare for this game. We are going to come out playing hard defense and we aren’t going to back down from anyone and keep playing hard.”