The restructuring of Auburn’s basketball roster got fully underway just 10 days after the Tigers’ season ended in Birmingham, as Bruce Pearl’s offseason rebuild kicked off with a pair of highly touted freshmen planning to enter the transfer portal.

Five-star combo forward Yohan Traore, a former top-25 prospect in the 2022 class, announced his intent to leave Auburn midday Tuesday, while four-star guard/forward Chance Westry followed suit with a decision to depart shortly thereafter. Neither player was a regular contributor for Auburn this past season, but both were highly regarded within the program.

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Now neither one will be part of the Tigers’ future, as Pearl is faced with another offseason roster project following Auburn’s 21-13 campaign that ended with another opening-weekend loss in the NCAA Tournament. It’s not an unfamiliar situation for Pearl, who two years ago faced a similar restocking of the cupboards following the Tigers’ 2020-21 campaign. That pandemic-impacted season, which ended with a self-imposed postseason ban, saw Auburn lose five players to the NBA Draft or the transfer portal: Sharife Cooper (draft), JT Thor (draft), Javon Franklin (South Alabama), Jamal Johnson (UAB) and Justin Powell (Tennessee).

Pearl responded by bringing in five-star freshman Jabari Smith and four transfer additions in Walker Kessler, Wendell Green Jr., K.D. Johnson and Zep Jasper. What followed was one of the most rewarding seasons in program history, as Auburn reached No. 1 in the AP poll for the first time ever, went wire-to-wire atop the SEC for the league’s regular-season crown and earned a two-seed in the NCAA Tournament while producing a pair of All-Americans and first-round picks in Smith and Kessler.

This offseason’s roster restructuring is shaping up to be a similarly extensive one for Pearl and his staff, which the head coach alluded to as a possibility in his postgame press conference after the team’s second-round loss to top-seeded Houston on March 18. Along with the departure of Traore and Westry, Auburn has four scholarship seniors who may have played their final games in an orange-and-blue uniform — including one, Zep Jasper, who has fully exhausted his college eligibility.

So, in the wake of Tuesday’s transfer news, where does that leave Auburn’s roster for next season? The Tigers have three spots to fill, so far, between Jasper’s departure and the transfers of Traore and Westry. That’s on top of the additional scholarship Auburn will regain next season after satisfying its NCAA-sanctioned scholarship penalties stemming from the 2017 investigation into the program.

More spots could become available based on the looming decisions for the Tigers’ trio of seniors — Allen Flanigan, Jaylin Williams and Stretch Akingbola — who could still take advantage of their COVID season of eligibility.

Flanigan tested the NBA Draft waters a year ago, participating in the G League Elite Camp last summer before withdrawing his name from the draft and returning for his senior season. The 6-foot-6 wing enjoyed a resurgence this season, returning to form after his junior campaign was severely impacted by a preseason Achilles injury. He was one of four players to average double-figure scoring this season, averaging 10.1 points per game — on 44.2 percent shooting and a 33.3 percent clip from beyond the arc — and five rebounds a night while finishing as the Tigers’ second-leading rebounder.

Williams was Auburn’s third-leading scorer this season, as the versatile 6-foot-8 forward averaged 11.2 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.1 steal per game. Akingbola, a career end-of-bench reserve and scout team player, appeared in just four games this season and logged 15 total minutes for the Tigers.

It could make sense for either of Flanigan or Williams to return for a fifth season, while Akingbola could stick around or seek an opportunity to see the court elsewhere for his final year of eligibility. None of the three has announced his plans as of Tuesday afternoon, though Flanigan and Williams were asked about their next steps following the loss to Houston. Both said they had not given it much thought at that point, but both intended to sit down with their families (which in Flanigan’s case includes his father, Auburn assistant coach Wes Flanigan) and Pearl before coming to their respective decisions.

Without including the potential return of any of those three seniors, Auburn is currently set to return just six scholarship players from this year’s roster. That includes the team’s two All-SEC selections and leading scorers, Green and Johni Broome, as well as Johnson (the Tigers’ sixth man this year), backup forward Chris Moore, backup center Dylan Cardwell and freshman Tre Donaldson. The Tigers will also add 2023 signee Aden Holloway, a McDonald’s All-American who is a borderline five-star guard and the 27th overall prospect in the 247Sports Composite rankings.

That leaves Auburn with three scholarships that are currently available and up to six scholarships for Pearl and his staff to fill this offseason, pending the decisions of those three seniors.

Adding a player from the 2023 class would be difficult at this point, given the nature of the basketball recruiting cycle, but Auburn isn’t devoid of options on that front. According to ESPN’s Paul Biancardi, Auburn is in the hunt for Blue Cain, a four-star shooting guard and top-100 player in the 2023 class who was recently granted his release from his letter of intent at Georgia Tech. While the 6-foot-4 Cain would provide some welcome relief for Auburn on the 3-point shooting front, Pearl and his staff have been busy on the recruiting front as they explore options on the transfer market.

Much like two seasons ago, it’s likely that most of Auburn’s reinforcements this offseason will come from the portal.

It’s early in the process, but Auburn has reportedly reached out to several intriguing options who have already entered their names into the portal. Among those are FIU transfer guard Denver Jones, an Alabama native who averaged north of 20 points per game this season while shooting 37 percent from deep, as well as Rice guard Quincy Olivari, a two-time All-Conference USA selection who averaged 18.7 points per game this season. Olivari, an Atlanta native who hails from the same high school as former Auburn star Chuma Okeke (Westlake High), told Fox 26 in Houston that Pearl will visit him in-person Tuesday in Texas.

Other transfer players Auburn has reportedly expressed interest in include Oregon big man Kel’el Ware, an Arkansas native and former five-star recruit who was rated as the No. 7 overall player in the 2022 class; Temple’s Damian Dunn, a 6-foot-5 guard who averaged 15.3 points per game and shot 34.8 percent from deep last season; SEC guards Amaree Abram (Ole Miss) and Kario Oquendo (Georgia), the latter of whom is also testing the NBA Draft waters. Auburn also reportedly reached out to Brown transfer guard Paxson Wojcik, a former high school teammate of Green’s, but he committed to North Carolina on Tuesday afternoon.

There are other names that Auburn has been linked to as well, and it’s still early in the offseason — the Final Four and national championship game are still to be played in the upcoming week — but it’s clear that Pearl and his staff of assistants have their work cut out in retooling the roster for next season.

It’s why Pearl, just 45 minutes after Auburn’s season ended at Legacy Arena, was already eager to get out and start recruiting later that night.

Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.