The 5-man crew that helps keeps Auburn basketball sharp

AUBURN — Lior Berman is a righty, but not in the lead-up to Auburn basketball's game against Texas A&M.

As the Tigers prepared to host the Aggies in Neville Arena on Tuesday, Berman was tasked with becoming Tyrece Radford, a lefty. He needed to assume the role of the sixth-year senior in practice so that he could give Auburn's starters a simulated look at what they could expect against the real thing.

The shapeshifting plot seemed to work, at least in part. Radford scored 14 points versus the Tigers, but he was held to 30.8% shooting in the 66-55 A&M loss. It's only the fourth time in 12 tries coach Bruce Pearl has beaten the Aggies in his 10-season Auburn career, with the latest victory before that coming nearly two years ago.

Berman is just one piece of a five-man crew that helps keep the Tigers sharp. Pearl typically pairs him on the floor in practice with Jalen Harper, Addarin Scott, Carter Sobera and Blake Muschalek to form Auburn's scout team, a group that often has its value overlooked.

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A scout team is not unique to the Tigers. Far from it. But what could be unique is the quality of the unit. After Auburn blasted Arkansas by 32 points Saturday, Razorbacks coach Eric Musselman said he put five scholarship players on his scout team in hopes of providing a spark.

"That's not been the case in the four years that I've been here," Musselman said of the change. "We've always used managers and graduate assistants, but today they had to guard five scholarship players. That's a different look."

Two of Auburn's regulars on the scout team are on scholarship — Berman and Scott — but Pearl thinks Harper, the younger brother of Tigers legend Jared Harper, has the "speed, quickness and athleticism of an SEC guard." That trio, in conjunction with Muschalek, a freshman, and Sobera, a senior, satisfies Pearl.

"You put those five guys out there, they can run some stuff," the Auburn coach said Monday. "They can play. As a result, I don’t have to go best-on-best in-season ever. It’s been a huge part of our program and development and what we believe in."

The Tigers put an emphasis on adding a scholarship big man on the roster that could run with the scout team, which is why they targeted Scott: "We really recruited him knowing that he might come in as a backup to a backup," Pearl said. "... One of the reasons why I did it was to help me develop Johni (Broome) and Dylan (Cardwell), in the sense that every day they’ve got to go up every day against a Division I scholarship player who’s got some athleticism. He’s important."

Berman's contributions as a scout player are doubly impressive because he's also a part of Auburn's main rotation. Berman must not only know what the Tigers are deploying, but he also has to get familiar enough with what opponents want to do so that he can run it in practice.

Sometimes that means learning upwards of 50 plays, according to Sobera, who recalls putting in that many in preparation for last season's game against LSU. The coaching staff rotates who's in charge of running the scout team throughout the season. Sometimes it's associate head coach Steven Pearl. Other times its assistant Chad Prewett. Offensive coordinator Mike Burgomaster may have some input, too.

Berman, Harper, Scott, Sobera and Muschalek are the main five, but others such as walk-ons CJ Williams, Presley Patterson and Haston Alexander may also have some contributions.

“It’s a lot, especially when you’re first getting here and you’re not really familiar with all the terminology that they use," Sobera said. "So, it can be kind of overwhelming at first. But being here for four years and doing it day-in and day-out for all that time, it’s gotten a lot easier. ... A lot of the stuff that teams run is pretty similar, so it’s easy to pick up on. ...

"When it’s time to go live and you know the other team’s plays really well, it can be really fun and rewarding helping these guys get better even though we’re not on the floor necessarily making a difference.”

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: How a 5-man scout team helps Auburn basketball prepare for SEC battles