ESPN journalist drops interesting description of Bruce Pearl’s Auburn basketball practices
Bruce Pearl’s 2024-25 Auburn basketball team has gotten the deep-dive treatment. ESPN’s Myron Medcalf went to the Neville Arena to check out how Pearl’s No. 1 Tigers practice to make (nearly) perfect.
Medcalf described a scene that isn’t unfamiliar to most Auburn fans: a joking happy-go-lucky group before the whistle and a locked-in program once duty calls.
And perhaps most unsurprisingly of all is Chad Baker-Mazara’s role in it all.
“At first glance, an Auburn practice looks more like a middle school gym class on the last day before spring break. In mid-February, as the Tigers jogged around, Chad Baker-Mazara — the team’s resident class clown and temperamental star — poked teammates and giggled like a kid at the dinner table,” Medcalf relayed.
“The squad that has dominated the greatest SEC in conference history does not seem to take itself too seriously. But when Pearl blew his whistle, the laughing stopped and the No. 1 team in America began to compete with the same intensity that has overwhelmed a multitude of opponents.”
CBM, who will likely be returning to the program in 2025-26 with an extra year of eligibility granted due to the NCAA’s recent JUCO ruling, explained how the players agreed for it to be this way.
“That’s how we are. We goof around with each other at all times,” Baker-Mazara said. “I mean, this is outside the court. We goof around all the time. It is always playing around and joking around. But we made a pact this summer that whenever we come in here and [Pearl] says his first words, that’s it.”
Auburn cannot relent after the whistle blows in March Madness. A fourth straight exit before the second weekend even starts would be even more devastating considering AU’s regular season greatness.
Even if reports say practice is intense, there will be an underlying worry until the Tigers start streaking during the Big Dance.
