Auburn Head Coach Sends Message After Losses, Ahead of SEC Tournament
The Auburn Tigers’ regular season is in the review mirror, and their head coach leaves it with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.
Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl joined The Paul Finebaum Show ahead of SEC Tournament play. The Tigers head to Nashville in unfamiliar territory. They’ve lost their last two games, accounting for half of their losses on the year.
The frustration is there, but there is also a positive angle to go along with it. From Pearl’s view, this is an opportunity to fuel the team again.
“Look, we’re hungry. We’ve lost our last two games…we’ve only lost to teams that are good enough to win national championships,” Pearl said. “But we have lost the last two games. We’re not happy about it. We’re a little pissed off about it, and I hope that carries us through the tournament. Sometimes when you’re a little pissed off, you play with an edge.”
The Tigers finished the regular season with a 27-4 record overall and a 15-3 record in the conference. While clinched it over a week ago now, they wound up just edging out the Florida Gators to win the regular season championship by one game.
The recent losses knocked them down a couple pegs in the AP Top 25. After eight weeks at No. 1, they dropped down to No. 3. Duke, who beat Auburn earlier in the year, and Houston are the two teams ahead of them in the Top 25.
Auburn is set to begin conference tournament play on Friday at noon CDT. They have a bye to the quarterfinals. Potential opponents include eighth-seed Ole Miss, ninth-seed Arkansas and 16th-seed South Carolina.
The recent losses have yet to change Auburn’s projections for the tournament. As of 1:44 a.m. on Tuesday morning, Auburn is still the top seed and would begin play in Lexington, Ky., the South Region (Atlanta).
