Bruce Pearl questions whether Auburn was ‘rewarded’ for playing tough schedule
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Bruce Pearl might be a little biased, or a lot biased, but he’s no longer the Auburn head basketball coach, and on Sunday night after the Tigers were left out of the 2026 NCAA Tournament, he was there on the CBS Selection Show to give his honest opinion on Auburn’s plight.
The Tigers had an up-and-down regular season, to say the least, and then they failed to get deep enough in the SEC Tournament to change the minds of the selection committee on Sunday. Auburn had a mediocre 17-16 record to show for its work this season, even if it was against a really tough schedule that included the SEC gauntlet the past few months.
The Tigers went just 7-11 in the SEC during the regular season, then couldn’t get past Tennessee in the second round of the SEC Tournament. It left Auburn in a dangerous spot going into Selection Sunday, and ultimately the Tigers finished in the dreaded “First Four Out” when the 68-team field was revealed.
Auburn, coached now by Pearl’s son, Steven, got clipped in the end, and Bruce Pearl was there to defend the program he used to lead.
“Auburn beat 3 champions this year. They beat Florida, they beat St. John’s, and they beat Arkansas,” Pearl said. “They played the toughest schedule in the country, don’t know if they were rewarded for it.”
Pearl also knows how crowded the NCAA field already was with SEC teams, with the conference getting 10 teams into the field on Sunday.
“It’s hard to get a couple more SEC teams in when the SEC already has 10 (teams),” Pearl admitted.
Auburn won’t have a chance to make a run in this season’s NCAA Tournament, but here is what the Kalshi market sees as the top teams in the mix to win it all come early April:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
