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Bruce Pearl hopes to see ‘pissed off’ Auburn play with an edge
By Andrew Olson
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Auburn ended the regular season by picking up back-to-back losses for the first time all year. Bruce Pearl hopes to see his team turn their frustration into edgy play on the court with March Madness beginning.
Pearl appeared on The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday. He noted how sometimes the regular-season conference champ does not have the best March.
“I’ll just use us in 2019,” Pearl said. “I had a really good team that tied for 4th in the SEC. Didn’t win the league… I don’t want to say we underachieved, but we hadn’t really accomplished anything. And we got hot at the end of the year.
“I think, sometimes, the regular-season champions that win a championship and grind all year long – there’s no level of satisfaction, but there’s not that desperation of we’ve worked so hard and we’ve accomplished nothing.”
The 2019 Auburn team was the first in program history to reach the Final Four. Pearl also pointed to another SEC program that didn’t win either conference title, but also made it to the Final Four.
“I thought Alabama last year had a really, really good team,” Pearl said. “They were good all year long. Then, at the end of the year, they didn’t win the regular-season (title) – Tennessee did. They didn’t win the (SEC) Tournament – Auburn did.
“So they get into the NCAA Tournament and say, you know, we’re only a couple wins away from the Sweet 16. You know, we’re only 4 wins away from getting to the Final Four. When you compartmentalize it, sometimes it becomes a little bit easy.”
Auburn did win the regular-season SEC title, securing it before the losses to Texas A&M and Alabama. The Tigers, though, may enter the SEC Tournament with a different attitude than most regular-season champions.
“For Auburn, we’re hungry. We’ve lost our last 2 games,” Pearl said. “We’ve lost 4 games this year, against the No. 1 team in the country , the No. 3 team in the country, No. 4 team in the country and the No. 14 team in the country. So we’ve only lost to teams that are good enough to win national championships.
“But we have lost the last 2 games. We’re not happy about it. We’re a little pissed off about it, and I hope that carries us through the tournament. Because sometimes being pissed off gives you a little bit of an edge.”
As the SEC Tournament’s No. 1 seed, Auburn has a double bye. The Tigers will play on Friday.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
