3 biggest questions for Auburn basketball after busy offseason. How will Aden Holloway perform?

AUBURN — Auburn basketball underwent significant changes this offseason.

The Tigers, who made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to No. 1 seed Houston, lost six of the 12 players they had on scholarship from last season's roster. Coach Bruce Pearl supplemented those losses by adding transfers Denver Jones (Florida International) and Chaney Johnson (Alabama-Huntsville) to go along with junior college pickups Chad Baker-Mazara and Addarin Scott.

Five-star freshman Aden Holloway is also set to make his debut; he moved onto campus as Auburn began summer practices earlier this month.

There's no telling how this collection of talent will fare compared to last year's team, but it'll certainly be different. Here are the three biggest questions surrounding the program with the season about five months away.

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LATEST ADDITION: Junior college big man Addarin Scott announces commitment to Auburn basketball, Bruce Pearl

Will Aden Holloway live up to the hype?

Holloway, rated as the No. 4 point guard in the Class of 2023, is the second-best recruit Auburn has ever landed, per the 247Sports Composite. He's sandwiched between Jabari Smith Jr. (2021) and Sharife Cooper (2020) on the all-time list, putting him in the same category as some of Auburn's most talented players. Smith led the Tigers to their first No. 1 ranking in the AP Poll, and Cooper, despite playing 12 games, averaged 20.2 points and 8.1 assists.

But two spots under Holloway on the rankings is Yohan Traore, the five-star big man Pearl landed last offseason. And just a handful of spots under Traore is Chance Westry, who was also a part of the Class of 2022 as a four-star recruit. Neither is still on the team after they both struggled to crack the rotation and transferred; Westry dealt with a knee injury before he eventually announced he was redshirting.

The hype is there for the 6-foot-1, 165-pound Holloway, but it's to be seen what he does at the college level.

Does Johni Broome's play improve?

Johni Broome is back for another season on the Plains after testing the 2023 NBA Draft waters, and looking good while doing it. Broome parlayed his performance at the G League Elite Camp into an invite to the combine, where he dropped 26 points, 16 boards and two blocks across two games.

Broome proved to be a capable scorer in the post last season — his 14.2 points per game led the Tigers — and he even expanded his range toward the end of the campaign, shooting 40% (6-for-15) from 3-point territory over his final eight games. Now it's a matter of improvement, and Broome should be in a good position to do that.

Auburn added some elite shooters this offseason, and as the Auburn Observer's Justin Ferguson pointed out, Broome averaged 15.9 points and 9.3 rebounds and made 60.6% of his 2-pointers when the Tigers shot better than 33% from 3-point range last season. He excelled with space to work, and that should happen more often in 2023-24.

Will the shooting translate?

The six players that left Auburn this offseason combined to shoot 28.5% from 3-point range last season. The new additions combined to make 38.5% of their triples. The latter number includes Baker-Mazara's efficiency at Northwest Florida State College, where he connected on a staggering 46.9% of his shots from beyond the arc.

But Auburn has seen this movie before. The Tigers brought in four transfers two offseasons ago in Wendell Green Jr., Zep Jasper, KD Johnson and Walker Kessler. That group shot 35.4% at their respective schools before coming to the Plains.

The stats say Auburn's shooting should improve, but numbers don't matter if the on-court production doesn't match.

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: Auburn basketball: Biggest questions for Tigers after busy offseason