Auburn star Chad Baker-Mazara has ‘It’

During Auburn’s greatest moments, Chad Baker-Mazara displays perhaps college basketball’s most vibrant smile. It’s part wonderment, part defiant confidence, part genuine joy. 

The 6-foot-7 senior from the Dominican Republic also flashes a stern scowl from time to time, reminding friends and foes that he’s not going to be bullied on the court.

There has been plenty to smile about this season for Baker-Mazara and the Auburn Tigers, the No. 1 men’s college basketball team in the country. Auburn, which is on a 10-game winning streak, is 17-1 overall and 5-0 in the Southeastern Conference. 

The Santo Domingo native is having the best season of his college career. He has torched opponents with relentless defense, steady rebounding and a deft touch from behind the 3-point arc.

Moreover, nobody is better than Baker-Mazara from the free throw line.

High praise

“Chad Baker’s got stuff you can’t teach,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl told the local Auburn media earlier this month. “He’s got ‘it.’  There’s an ‘it’ factor in sports. The great ones have it. He’s got it.

“You can’t explain it, but when you see it, you know it. Other players know it, coaches know it. He’s got it.”

In case you cannot see “it,” the stats help paint an impressive picture. Baker-Mazara, who was named to the Julius Erving Small Forward Award preseason watch list, is Auburn’s second leading score with 13.1 points per game. He also leads the SEC with a 92.3 free throw percentage. 

Chad Baker-Mazara is a second-generation college basketball player. His father Derrek Baker played at South Carolina State in 1984-1985. The elder Baker eventually played and coached abroad.

Derrek Baker met Carmen Mazara in the Dominican Republic, where Chad was born and raised until he was 17. Chad left the Dominican Republic to live with his paternal grandfather Bailey Baker and begin his junior year of high school.

After a stellar high school career, Baker-Mazara began his college career at Duquesne in 2020. Then he transferred to San Diego State for the 2021-2022 season, when he was the Mountain West Conference’s Sixth Man of the Year.

Then he transferred to Northwest Florida State College, guiding that school to the 2022-2023 NJCAA national championship game.

Difficult adjustment

Along the way he refined his English skills. Despite an American father and grandfather, the adjustment to a new language and country wasn’t easy.

“It was pretty hard not being able to communicate with people,” he said. “That was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, trying to communicate with somebody and not know how to.”

There were times when Chad Baker-Mazara would try to communicate by using his hands to signal words. At other times he would say a Spanish word and try to add a syllable or two to make it sound the way he assumed would be the word’s English pronunciation.

More from Our Esquina
Robbie Avila, Norchad Omier, Dawson Garcia highlight Latinos in college hoops
Andersson Garcia defines Texas A&M spirit
Aaliyah Chavez leads Top 25 Young Latino athletes to watch in ’25

Over time people began to understand him as he gained a grasp of the language.

“People understand me like different tones or something like that,” he says. “But, you know, trying to do stuff like that helped me. Yeah, that was probably the most extreme, hardest thing I’ve ever done. Like going to like probably learn a whole different language. But after that, after you get a handle of it and it gets easy to talk to.”

Chad has faced other major tests along the way. He transferred to Auburn for his redshirt junior season and started nine of his 35 games last season. He was one of the best newcomers in the SEC during the 2023-24 season. 

Baker-Mazara was named to the All SEC Tournament team last year after helping Auburn win the tournament. March Madness ended in disappointment for him and Auburn, though.

Chad Baker-Mazara seeks redemption

He was ejected from the first round of the NCAA Tournament after elbowing a Yale player. Some would say he was baited into retaliating, but Baker-Mazara doesn’t make any excuses now.

Redemption, an SEC reguar season title and a second consecutive SEC Tournament title are among his goals this season.

“Obviously to go back again and win a back to back SEC (Tournament) championships, that would be pretty big,” he says. “ And then, you know, to be able to redeem myself for what happened last year with March Madness in our loss in the first round to Yale.”

Baker-Mazara is a fiery competitor. He always has been. That much has been evident to any fan who has watched him play at Auburn or anywhere else. 

He has grown and matured, though.

“The scouting report will be to try and hit him and hold him and grab him and have some extracurricular contact with him. And that stuff would upset any player,” Pearl told Auburn beat writers recently. “But he gets it every single night. … 

“But he has done a better job sort of realizing this is just how people are gonna guard me to try to stop me. And he’s done, I would say, just learning and handling his passion. He’s so passionate and he’s such an effective player that he’s playing through some of that garbage.”

Chad Baker-Mazara is trying to change some of the narrative that was fed after he was ejected against Yale. He credits Pearl and his teammates with helping him remain under control during heated moments.

It’s not easy, but he has made tremendous strides in his quest for redemption and a national title.

“I was pretty bad,” he says. “The coach helped me and my teammates have been a big part of talking to me and being able to create in ways that whenever I’m getting actually like really high I’ll be able to look at somebody. And that person would like, that’s the one guy who in my head I’m like, ‘OK, something’s going on.’”

_{Featured photo courtesy of Auburn Univesity.}