Five-star ‘combo forward’ Yohan Traore signs with Auburn basketball

Auburn has officially signed five-star “combo forward” Yohan Traore.

Bruce Pearl teased the signing by tweeting “boom” Thursday night, Auburn has officially signed five-star [autotag]Yohan Traore[/autotag], the No. 15 player in the 2022 class and second-highest recruit in program history.

“I am so pleased to welcome Yohan to the Auburn Family,” Pearl said. “I have great respect for players like Yohan, who come to the U.S. to pursue their academic and athletic dreams, far away from their families. Talk about a cultural fit to our program. Yohan is humble and hungry. He is incredibly disciplined, a hard worker, and wants to be coached. He has tremendous upside because of his effort, his attitude, his size, and his skill level. Assistant Coach Wes Flanigan did an outstanding job of spearheading his recruitment to Auburn.”

Traore is the third member of Auburn’s 2022 recruiting class, joining four-star guard Chancy Westry and three-star point guard Tre Donaldson. The class is ranked 13th in the country and third in the SEC, according to the 247Sports Composite team ranking.

Traore is the second-highest rated recruit in program history behind All-American, SEC, and National Freshman of the Year Jabari Smith. Traore is the fourth five-star player to sign with Auburn, joining Smith, Sharife Cooper, and Mustapha Heron; all four have come during the Pearl era. Walker Kessler was also a five-star out of high school but spent one season at North Carolina before transferring to Auburn.

Auburn lists Traore as a “combo forward” and that title fits his skill set perfectly. Originally from France, Traore is 6-feet-10 and 225-pounds with the skill set to play either power forward or center for Auburn and will likely play both in his time at Auburn. He has the shooting to become a stretch-four buy also the size, athleticism, and skill set to play around the basket, like a more traditional center. He needs to improve his offensive game when his back is to the basket, but his game is already ahead of Kessler in that regard.

He is not as good a shooter as Smith or as good defensively as Kessler but he can do things that both of them were capable of and will go a long way in helping replace the production from them.

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