I got to meet Bruce Pearl a couple of times when he'd do events at my old company, where I was known as THE Gator Guy. He was a HUGE fan of Billy Donovan. He's hard to dislike, esp. in person. He left Knoxville with zero enemies, and lots of friends across many social/cultural/religious lines. He was enthusiastically and visibly active in the Jewish community here, which I think many across faiths admired. I know I did. He has a joyful approach. He seems focused less on whipping up a rivalry with an opponent and more about celebrating HIS team. I think Todd Golden has picked that up from him. I believe the mutual respect can be seen among teams that are confident in themselves and their body of work. No players on any of the teams have a rep for trash talk and show-boating, as far as I have seen. It's like 4 pro teams coming together.
Agreed on Pearl. I’ve never met him personally, but I always enjoy him whenever he’s talking to the press. He’s also responsible for maybe the funniest joke ever heard from a coach. Many years ago when he was coaching Tenn, reporters were following the team during the NCAA tournament. Pearl and the team are loading up their plates at their hotel breakfast buffet, and at one point, Pearl turns to the camera and says, “Free bacon. A Jewish dilemma.”
What Bruce has done with the Auburn basketball program is arguably one of the most phenomenal program builds ever. While we've had our moments (I was in school at AU during the Chris Porter era Cliff Ellis teams), we were probably the WORST Power 5 job nationally when Bruce took over in 2014. We had 2 SEC championships in our entire history, no Final Fours and we had never been ranked #1 (The Porter teams got to #2). Bruce has led Auburn to 5 SEC titles in the last 7 years (3 Regular Season, 2 Tourney Titles), 2 Final Fours, and had 2 separate teams ranked #1 in the polls. Neville arena is arguably the best home court advantage in CBB and you regularly see thousands of Auburn fans in road venues. It's incredible what he's achieved here.
Here is a joke made by Jim Valvano. He asked a ref if he could get a T for what he was thinking. The ref said of course not. Jim then told the ref that he thinks that he sucks.
Same reply from another thread. Let a Broome get his 30+ points and shut down the rest of the team. Don't keep turning the ball over, run and gun, and win the game. Oh, and keep making your FTs.
Things have changed since the NIL era began. He is the same as Sampson, and likely Pitino. He decided to just..."look"...the other way when "things" got done. That is to me a character flaw, not too different than Ted Bundy had a character flaw. But that does not mean they are/were not charming and upright. It is just that when the opportunity presented itself... Now his character flaw is WAY down the list of sins, so says the NCAA.
Whichever team has cold shooting will lose. Take bama vs duke or ut vs houston, both teams shot great the previous game but couldn’t do diddly squat during the game they lost.
I expect Florida’s depth to be a major factor again. Auburn really plays only 7 guys and that can be a problem.
Plus according to Broome himself, the only reason he came back in last game was because I looked like a guy needed a break. If we run the bench at them it’s trouble for them
The only bummer is when we played at auburn we were getting some good minutes from urby and he has been completely ineffective in the tournament.
I remember after Handy got hurt last year, the Auburn team sent a nice video in a get well kind of way. Classy. Now let’s go pound them to smithereens!
3-3 from deep and held up on defense. Now he's unplayable it seems, he can't guard without fouling. I know this is a well duh statement, but we just need to shoot well from 3 mainly Martin and Richard need to find their shot again. I think we rebound and defend, but we need our shots to be falling.
