MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Before playing at Northwest Florida State College last season, junior college transfer Chad Baker-Mazara spent a year under coach Brian Dutcher at San Diego State. Baker-Mazara had to leave for academic reasons, but not before he was tabbed as the Mountain West Sixth Man of the Year as a sophomore.

And in his final game with the Aztecs, he performed well enough off the bench in a March Madness game against Creighton to impress Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl over a year later.

"Very excited about Chad," Pearl told the Montgomery Advertiser at the SEC spring meetings Tuesday. "In his sophomore year, San Diego State versus Creighton, he had like (15) in the first half against Creighton in an NCAA Tournament game. He's got skills. He's got feel. He's got real ability. He's won every place he's been. He's played for great coaches and even though he's wound up leaving for a variety of reasons, all the coaches that we backtracked with had nothing but really good things to say about him.

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"So, I think the transition for Chad right now is to physically work on his body, work on his game. His ability to play and his basketball IQ, his feel, is really high. ... He's long and he's got a real feel for the game."

Before SDSU, the 6-foot-7, 190-pound Baker-Mazara played one year at Duquesne, where he averaged 9.5 points and shot 41.7% from 3-point range. He scored 6.4 points per game with the Aztecs and then averaged 15.2 in junior college, shooting an impressive 46.9% on his triples last season.

With Allen Flanigan transferring out of Auburn and to Ole Miss, Baker-Mazara could slide into his starting role, though Pearl wasn't comfortable anointing him just yet.

"Let me tell you something, right now we've got 11 guys on scholarship, I believe," Pearl said. "It's a competition at every position."

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

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Why Chad Baker-Mazara stood out to Auburn basketball's Bruce Pearl