Bruce Pearl explains why he made changes to Auburn's rotation ahead of Georgia game

With a week in between games and some unforeseen roster changes, Bruce Pearl decided to switch up his lineup strategy — to positive results — in a win over Georgia.

Auburn played perhaps its poorest game of the season — definitely the worst home performance — in the loss vs. Kentucky and even came away without senior forward Jaylin Williams. Given the tough outing and the loss of Williams, adjustments needed to be made, explained Bruce Pearl in the postgame.

“Coming in without Jaylin Williams, we had to change some things up. Starting Chad Baker-Mazara, he was the best player on the floor tonight. We started Aden Holloway to see if we could get him going.”

There was even a third player who got a start after coming off the bench all year, and Pearl raved about that individual’s contributions.

“Chaney Johnson, first Division I start of his career. What a great game,” said Pearl. “You can see why our team is confident, it’s the next man up. Chaney was terrific defensively. Offensively, he was calm. He got that ball inside, took it closer.”

The Auburn head coach was just thrilled for Johnson, a former Division II player who transferred up to Auburn last offseason.

“He’s one of the hardest workers we’ve ever had,” Pearl added. “He played 26 minutes and didn’t miss a beat.”

For the Tigers, Jaylin Williams was such an integral piece as a floor-spacing four man who could guard pretty much any forward in the country. He is just so versatile. So without him, Pearl had to do some lineup gymnastics.

“I made a decision this week to have Chris (Moore) be the backup four. If we got in foul trouble with Dylan (Cardwell), Johni (Broome) and Chaney, I was ready to play Chris at some four. I took him out of the rotation at the three and played Lior Berman there. (Lior) did really well.”

With all these changes, Pearl is trying to find groups of guys that work well together, and with Dylan Cardwell getting some more run, he liked the combo of him and Tre Donaldson.

“The decision to go with Aden was to see if we can get him going, but also Tre does a great job of feeding Dylan in the air. I thought playing Dylan and Tre together in that second group might help get them going.”

With a week off, an injury to a starter, and coming off a bad loss, Bruce Pearl knew there needed to be some changes, and he’s happy they mostly seem to work against the Bulldogs.

“We made a bunch of changes and they paid off.”