Bruce Pearl and Jay Bilas speak about significance of Auburn’s upcoming trip to Israel

Bruce Pearl and Jay Bilas spoke on Monday about Auburn’s upcoming trip to Israel, and both spoke about the significance of the trip. Bilas, the ESPN men’s basketball analyst, said he doesn’t think it’s a stretch to call the trip the most significant such trip he can recall in terms of the cultural importance and impact it can have.

Auburn will take a preseason foreign tour to Israel from July 31 to Aug. 10. The Tigers will play 3 games over the course of 10 days in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They will face the Israeli U-20 National Team twice on Aug. 2 and 6 as well as the Israeli Senior National Team on Aug. 8. Bilas and ESPN’s Roxy Bernstein both said they couldn’t say yes fast enough when asked to join Bruce Pearl on the trip to Israel.

“One of the things our guys are gonna find out is that they love their basketball, and they’re good… Sometimes, you go on these overseas trips and the competition just flat-out isn’t there,” Pearl said.

To that point, Pearl added that Washington Wizards SF Deni Avdija play for Israel’s national team in the tour finale.

Auburn’s itinerary includes the City of David, the Western Wall, the Garden of Gethsemane, the holocaust museum Yad Vashem, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, the Jordan River and Sea of Galilee. The team will also have lunch with the Palestinian national basketball coach.

Bruce Pearl’s “dream and vision” is to make this Birthright for Basketball event a two-country tour (Auburn wouldn’t be able to do it again for another four years), with visits to the UAE and Israel, calling it “The Abraham Cup” in hopes of helping bring peace to the Middle East.

— Tom Green (@Tomas_Verde) July 25, 2022

H/T Justin Ferguson, Tom Green and Justin Hokanson.

Keith Farner

A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.