Auburn junior Chad Baker-Mazara hasn’t stayed in one place too long.

Baker-Mazara, a native of the Dominican Republic, started his career at Duquesne during the 2020-21 season. He spent the following season at San Diego State before academic struggles forced him to move on to Northwest Florida State College, a junior college nestled up in the Florida panhandle.

At Northwest Florida State College, Baker-Mazara helped lead the Raiders to an appearance in the NJCAA national championship as he averaged a team-high 15.2 points on the season. In the narrow national championship loss, Baker-Mazara scored 21 points.

Following the 2022-23 season at Northwest Florida State College, Baker-Mazara was in sophomore standing, meaning his time in junior college was over and if we wanted to continue playing, he’d have to return to a four-year institution to do so.

According to Baker-Mazara’s social media, the Texas A&M Aggies expressed interest, as did the Kentucky Wildcats.

But just eight hours after he posted about Kentucky giving him a call, Baker-Mazara returned to his social media to announce his commitment to Bruce Pearl and the Auburn Tigers, despite naysayers telling him he wasn’t built for the SEC.

“My whole life I’ve been dreaming about playing this game in the SEC,” Baker-Mazara said after Auburn’s 83-51 blowout win over Arkansas Saturday afternoon. “I’ve always heard people say I’m too skinny to play, or he might not be physical enough… I’m just trying to prove the people they’re wrong.”

And on Saturday afternoon, against an Arkansas program that had won four of the last five over Auburn and in a Bud Walton Arena that’s oft regarded as being one of the toughest road environments in the league, Baker-Mazara was given his first opportunity to hush his doubters.

He wasted no time at all.

Baker-Mazara came off the bench after less than three minutes of game clock had expired and immediately provided Auburn with a spark as he collected an offensive rebound, second-chance layup and a dunk in just more than a minute and a half.

After 12 minutes of action in the first half, Baker Mazara found himself heading to the locker room with 14 points, making him the only Auburn player in double-digit scoring. He did so on a 5-for-8 effort from the field, including a 2-for-3 effort from beyond the arc. He also added four rebounds in the first period.

With the help of SEC newbie Baker-Mazara, the Tigers were able to mount a seven-point lead over the Razorbacks at the break.

“Particularly Chad Baker offensively, just made some big shots and made some good decisions in a really tough stretch,” Pearl said. “His plus-minus wasn’t great, but we needed his buckets to sort of settle us down. He, I thought, gave us a great deal of confidence.”

Auburn outscored Arkansas 46-21 in the second half, paving the way for the Tigers to blow the doors off of Bud Walton Arena as the Razorbacks were handed their most lopsided home loss in program history — something Baker-Mazara wasn’t aware of until a reporter mentioned it during his postgame interview.

“I didn’t know that, but now you made it way better to be honest,” Baker-Mazara said. “That’s incredible. You’re always seeing online how this is one of the best arenas to play at. To be honest, it really was.”

That kind of reaction is to be expected from a player experiencing his first-ever SEC road game. After all, Baker-Mazara is the same guy who said he was too excited to sleep ahead of Auburn’s exhibition game against Auburn-Montgomery.

“Overall, it’s just great to be out there representing Auburn,” Baker-Mazara said after his first experience in front of Auburn’s student section, affectionately known as “The Jungle.”

Baker-Mazara carried that same feeling of gratitude into Bud Walton Arena Saturday afternoon.

“Hungry and humble,” Pearl said of Baker-Mazara after reminding reporters that he came from the junior college ranks.

Baker-Mazara’s scoring tear slowed in the second half as his teammates began to find their groove, namely Johni Broome, who put up 14 second-half points.

Nonetheless, in his first-ever SEC game, Baker-Mazara finished with 16 points, giving him the distinction of Auburn’s leading scorer for the first time this season.

What was supposed to be Baker-Mazara’s introduction to the SEC felt more like the SEC’s introduction to Baker-Mazara.

“Was it addressed that on the right wing they run a pick-and-roll for him to get to the middle and shoot his pull-up jump shot? Yeah, it was addressed about a hundred times,” a frustrated Arkansas’ head coach Eric Musselman said of Baker-Mazara. “But he still got to his sweet spot and I thought he played really hard, I thought he played really aggressive.”

So much for him being to skinny or not aggressive enough.

“It’s all about your heart and how bad you really want it,” Baker-Mazara said. “And that’s what really started me going, just got the flow of the game.”