Think of Tennessee men’s basketball for Bruce Pearl. Think of Auburn men’s basketball for Bruce Pearl.
Ernie and Bernie in the 1970s. Charles Barkley in the 1980s. Occasionally standing out and signs of life here and there. Usually, a way to occupy boring winter nights before spring football starts. Look at them now. Now look at the sec.
While Pearl is retiring, just before the season, hands over the program to son and head coach Steven Pearl associated, he leaves as one of the best and most important coaches in SEC history.
Adolph Rupp, Billy Donovan, Dale Brown and John Calipari are the only four with more victories than are 377 between those two schools. You cannot forget the impact of people such as Nolan Richardson and Rick Pitino (RUPP, Donovan, Calipari, Pitino and Joe B. Hall are the only five sec coaches with more than two last four, Pearl’s total, both at Auburn). And of course Rick Barnes continues as the winning coach of Tennessee.
But I doubt that De Vols would have been a feasible choice for Barnes, who would leave Texas in 2015, if not for what Pearl did in Knoxville from 2005-11. He showed that abundant amounts of energy, talent and coaching insight can transform the most football campuses into a Hoop Haven. Then he did it again at Auburn from 2014, when the sec was a smiling in the sport.
Dear family Auburn, I really love you.@Coachbrucepearl X #Wareagle pic.twitter.com/xfjaeetmlv
– Auburn basketball (@auburnmbb) September 22, 2025
“Equal to his coaching, which is substantial — like he’s a brilliant teacher and tactician and bench coach — but it’s his ability to recruit and sell his program, not only to players but to fans, his ability to build excitement,” said ESPN analyst and former Duke star Jay Bilas, who received Pearl’s First Recruiting Call as an Assistant Coach When Pearl was at Stanford in 1982. “I Mean, (Auburn) Went from Ghost Town to One of the best atmosphere in basketball.
Pearl did it, despite FBI and NCAA investigations into recruiting tactics that resulted in probation for the program, assistant coach, and a suspension for him. He was only in Auburn because he was fired at Tennessee and got a three-year show from the NCAA for lying against researchers. This came from a cookout in his house with a present recruit, which is the kind of trivial matter that even Dillier seems to be in the contemporary climate of players’ purchase.
But just like with Jim Harbaugh in Michigan and Jim Tressel in the state of Ohio, misleading researchers is a ticket for problems. It is honest to say that Pearl – who pulled the anger of much of his profession in the late 1980s when he was an Iowa assistant and had recorded a conversation with a recruit to try to get Illinois into trouble – was comfortable to live on the margins.
The same can be claimed about different of the aforementioned sec legends, by the way. And assuming many who have never been in a 70 in a 70. Pearl may have had a bit of a lead foot, but that should not keep him out of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He should already be.
“It is a fact, but it is not a factor, if that makes sense,” said Bilas about Pearl’s history of fame with NCAA enforcement. “What I would say is, Jerry Tarkanian is in the Naismith Hall of Fame. Rick Pitino is in the Naismith Hall of Fame. So we’re going to worry about a barbecue?”
Maybe in a gone era, but it’s hard to imagine now. Pearl, 65, gets his flowers. He will probably be an important voice in the political arena, somehow. And he will be there as an advisor for Steven while trying to let things roll for auburn basketball. Steven has built this opportunity and has the basketball center to do it.
But it’s hard to follow a legend. It is difficult to follow a huge personality. It is difficult to win great in the SEC, the clear best conference today in men’s basketball. Bruce Pearl helped create all those conditions.
(Photo: Robert Deutsch / Imagn Images)
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