On September 22, Steven Pearl got handed the keys to an Auburn program that had reached the Final Four, reloaded through the transfer portal, and entered the basketball season nationally ranked.
Pearl has taken that Auburn program and treated it much like those wacky kids in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” did Cameron’s dad’s sports car.
Auburn started the season ranked 20th in The Associated Press poll, dropped out of the rankings before Christmas, and never made it back. The Tigers got blown out against three of their highly-ranked opponents: losing to 30 against Michigan, by 29 at Arizona, and 28 against a Purdue team that was No. 6 in the nation at the time. Auburn then proceeded to limp to the regular-season finish line, losing eight of the final 10 including five in a row. After Thursday’s loss to Tennessee in the SEC tournament, Auburn is clinging to a 17-16 record and hopes that a high strength of schedule rating is enough to secure an NCAA Tournament bid. Yes, after reaching the Final Four as a top seed, there’s a strong probability Auburn will not even make the 68-team field.
Along the way, Pearl has endured several moments — more than a few, less than a bunch — where he’s said something he shouldn’t, committed a gaffe, or just plain looked bad or made the program look bad.
For this week’s Friday 5, we humbly list Steven Pearl’s five greatest (or worst) low lights from his season of cringe on The Plains.
1) Punching down: Pearl coached his first regular-season game in his new gig on November 3, about 24 hours after Auburn gave football coach Hugh Freeze his walking papers. After the Tigers beat Bethune-Cookman, Pearl’s postgame comments included this gem: “I know Auburn fans are tired of being told to be patient. So we’re going to get our asses to work.”
Pearl was making an oblique reference to some of the final comments Freeze made before he got canned — “I wish I could ask for patience, but that’s not something people are willing to give in this day and age. I just know we’re so dang close.”
A couple of things to unpack here… first, it’s poor form to take shots at a coach that just lost his job, especially when you’re employed at the same university. And second, Pearl made his comments after Auburn needed overtime to beat Bethune-Cookman. Timing matters.
2) Back-to-back apologies: Celebrities who behave badly and then try to rebuild their image embark on “apology tours” where they make the media rounds talking about their mistakes so they can have another chance to salvage their careers and reputations. Pearl’s head coaching career is just getting started, but after his Auburn team lost consecutive games in late February to Oklahoma and Ole Miss — Southeastern Conference does that range in quality from mediocre to dismal — Pearl apologized to the fans after each of those contests in his postgame media briefing. It’s better than blatantly throwing your team under the bus, but calling them “entitled” certainly was a choice.
3) Fortunate son: When Pearl’s dad, Bruce Pearl retired in September and his son, who already was the de facto “coach in waiting”, Auburn compiled an array of comments from administrators vouching for the younger Pearl’s bona fides to take over a power conference program with absolutely zero experience as a head coach at any level. Then, earlier this month, the elder Pearl made comments on a podcast appearance that yeah, his son totally succeeded him as the Auburn coach because of nepotism. “Am I rooting for my son to make the NCAA tournament? Of course I am. Did I help my son get the job? Nepotism? Of course I did,” Pearl said on Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich. “People want to accuse me of stuff, saying, ‘Yeah, I love the United States of America. I love my ancestral Jewish homeland.’ I’m not going to deny who I am and who I’ve always been.”
Such remarks, combined with a record struggling to stay over the .500 mark, should not instill confidence in Auburn fans.
4) The locker room speech: A clip of Pearl’s locker room speech to his team before its regular-season finale with Alabama went viral a few days ago. You can see the video here. Go check it out.
Back yet? Good, let’s continue and just talk for a minute about how awkward that entire speech was.
Hollering “You’ve played the toughest schedule!” at his team … hit a little deeper vocal register and you might be confused for that fictional counselor who lives in a van down by the river. Wonder if he considered any other words of wisdom: “You’re sixth in the KenPom free throw rate rankings!”
Probably not.
5) Not illegal, but … : Our final item on the list is also the most recent. Grant Leonard, the basketball coach at NCAA Tournament-bound Queens, went on social media earlier this week and called out Auburn for sending one of its assistant coaches to the ASUN tournament to observe and scout players that could be targeted additions with the transfer portal opened. Auburn assistant Ian Borders did this from a courtside seat, no less! When contacted for a response, Pearl didn’t attempt to disguise the purpose of the trip, telling The Athletic only that “it is a permissible activity.” We could probably have a lengthy debate on letter of the law vs. spirit of the law, or that NCAA rules and regulations just do not seem to matter much currently given a general absence of enforcement. Still, this is another example of bad optics for Pearl in a debut season that has been full of them.
Maybe Auburn still sneaks into the NCAA Tournament. But few outside of its fanbase are going to be rooting for the Tigers if Pearl keeps up these type of cringe-worthy moments.