Auburn star Tahaad Pettiford, an SEC participant of the yr contender in 2025-26, was arrested early Saturday morning on a DUI cost in Lee County, Alabama, in keeping with jail logs.
Pettiford was nonetheless in custody with a $1000 bond as of late Saturday morning, a supply on the Lee County jail informed ESPN.
“We’re conscious of the state of affairs, and we are going to deal with it internally with Tahaad and his household,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl mentioned in a press release to ESPN on Saturday. “We take these issues severely and can study and develop from it transferring ahead.”
The 19-year-old’s arrest for driving drunk comes simply weeks after he withdrew from the NBA draft. Pettiford, who averaged 11.6 PPG in his freshman season for an Auburn group that secured the No. 1 general seed within the NCAA event and reached the Last 4, is the cornerstone of Auburn’s subsequent chapter following the departure of star Johni Broome.
Following his withdrawal from the draft, Pettiford mentioned he returned to Auburn partly to show that he can compete on the subsequent stage.
“I used to be joyful to undergo the method, getting suggestions from NBA groups,” Pettiford informed ESPN then. “Going again to Auburn is a greater state of affairs for me. I see myself being the next decide subsequent yr. It wasn’t 100% this yr, so I did not wish to take that probability.”
Though he did not obtain the identical buzz as a number of the prime freshmen within the nation in the course of the 2024-25 season, Pettiford was broadly considered as the most effective younger gamers within the nation.
He is on a brief checklist of gamers who will enter the 2025-26 season as a doable preseason All-American. He averaged 15.2 PPG in 5 NCAA event video games.
Previous to his group’s run to the Last 4, Pearl praised Pettiford’s humility and refusal to get upset when he needed to settle for much less enjoying time on a squad filled with prime veterans.
“I suppose some would simply kind of anticipate that to be an issue,” Pearl mentioned about Pettiford’s state of affairs in April. “Not a phrase. Not a physique language, shoulder shrug, roll eye ever from Tahaad.”