AUBURN — Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl likes plenty about SMU transfer Ja'Heim Hudson.

An example? The way his head and shoulders connect.

"One of the things for me about Turtle — that’s his nickname, by the way," Pearl said of Hudson on Monday at his charity golf event at the Willow Point Golf and Country Club in Alexander City. "Is he’s got a little head that sits on top his shoulders. He’s got these big shoulders. I like those guys. Guys that are 6-7 with short heads, they’re actually 6-8 or 6-9. It’s those 6-9 guys with the big hair, long necks and the big head, they’re actually 6-7."

Pearl's comments were made a bit in jest, but he does value what Hudson brings to the table. The 6-foot-7, 230-pound forward averaged 5.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 0.9 assists in 31 games with the Mustangs last season. During his sophomore season at Georgia State, where Hudson began his collegiate career, he dropped 10.1 points per game on 46.5% shooting.

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Hudson played at Neville Arena when he was with the Panthers in 2022. He struggled from the field, shooting 3-for-12, but he ended up with eight points and yanked down a game-high 11 rebounds while battling with Jaylin Williams on the inside.

A Georgia native, Hudson helped Wheeler High School win back-to-back state championships as a junior and senior. He signed with Georgia State as a three-star recruit, rated by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 75 power forward in the Class of 2021.

"The last three coaches he played for said, ‘He was my favorite. One of my favorite student athletes, one of my favorite teammates, one of my favorite kids. Hard worker.’ What I was looking to try to do was really complement that frontline," Pearl said. "With Dylan (Cardwell) and Johni (Broome) and Chaney (Johnson), those are three seniors that are good, that are going to play.

"I wanted to bring in somebody that wasn’t afraid to compete with them but that wasn’t going to feel like they were entitled. Turtle knows he’s going to play every night. What kind of role is he going to play? That’s going to be up to those four. But it’s just sort of the right fit and I’m really excited about what he brings. He brings some toughness to us. He can get downhill. He can shoot the 3-ball a little bit."

Hudson is a career 29.9% shooter from beyond the 3-point arc on an average of 1.7 attempts per game. While at SMU, he knocked down 32.1% of his attempted triples on 1.8 shots.

The next step for Hudson is taking advantage of the training program he'll have at Auburn, something that perhaps wasn't as advanced while he was at SMU and Georgia State.

"It’s going to be interesting this offseason, and this summer is so important to our guys right now," Pearl said. "Because this is when you change. This is when you change your body. ... These next eight weeks are really, really important for our team as we start, really right after Memorial Day, of getting after it.

"With Turtle, it will be interesting with the training that we do, what that will bring out in him."

Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @rich_silva18.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Ja'Heim Hudson: Why Bruce Pearl wanted SMU transfer for Auburn hoops