Eric Musselman knows all about Chad Baker-Mazara from his tenure at Arkansas in the Southeastern Conference. Instead of going against him, now Muss will get to coach CBM.
The 25-year-old Baker-Mazara is transferring from Auburn to USC. He announced the decision with posts to his social media accounts on Monday morning.
Baker-Mazara was a key component of Bruce Pearl’s program over the last two seasons when Auburn won the 2024 SEC Tournament, the 2024-25 SEC regular-season title and advanced to the Final Four for only the second time in program history.
During the 2023-24 campaign, Baker-Mazara started nine of 35 games and logged 21.7 minutes per game. He averaged 10.0 points, 3.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.0 steals per game.
However, Baker-Mazara hurt his team by getting ejected early in the first half of Auburn’s first-round loss to Yale in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
Baker-Mazara started 34 of 38 games this past season, averaging 12.3 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.2 SPG. He buried 44.8 percent of his field-goal attempts, 38.1 percent of his treys and 88.8 percent of his free throws.
Baker-Mazara was a non-factor in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, but that wasn’t the case in the Tigers’ push to the Final Four. In an 82-70 win over Creighton that was a much closer game than the final score indicated in the Round of 32, he had 17 points and hit 2-of-4 launches from 3-point range.
In Auburn’s 70-64 win over Michigan St. in the Elite Eight, Baker-Mazara finished with six points, two rebounds, one steal and five assists without a turnover. He had 18 points and four steals on 4-of-7 makes from 3-point land in the Tigers’ 79-73 loss to Florida in the national semifinals.
CBM averaged 9.5 PPG as a freshman when he played at Duquesne during the 2020-21 season. Then he transferred to San Diego St. for the 2021-22 campaign, averaging 6.4 PPG.
According to the 247Sports Composite, USC has the nation’s #5 recruiting class with 10 new players. Baker-Mazara is the eighth player Musselman has plucked from out of the portal.
He’s the sixth four-star transfer along with Rodney Rice (Maryland), Ezra Ausar (Utah), Gabe Dynes (Youngstown St.), Keonte Jones (Cal State Northridge) and Jacob Cofie (Virginia). Amarion Dickerson, a three-star transfer from Robert Morris who had a monster game against Alabama in the first round of the NCAAT, is also headed to USC.
Musselman has a pair of incoming freshmen joining the roster, too. Both players – five-star Alijah Arenas and four-star Jerry Easter – are shooting guards. Arenas, the son of Gilbert, was injured in a car crash last week and his status for this season is up in the air.
FanDuel has the Trojans with 60/1 odds to win the 2026 NCAA Tournament.