Pearl, Tigers focus on NCAA opener after navigating chaos
since 2003.
For Pearl, the bigger SAN DIEGO — Bruce Pearl and concern is how the fourthAuburn’s basketball program seeded Tigers will play today have been under a cloud against No. 13 seed Charlessince before the start of the ton in the first round of the season. Midwest Region. His team
Even though they faced has learned to live within the investigations, the loss of chaos surrounding the proan assistant coach, the inel- gram and somehow thrived igibility of two key players, despite it. or even Pearl’s minor run-in “You go through a prowith an opposing strength cess with an internal invescoach last week at the SEC tigation or answering ques- tournament, Pearl led the tions from the NCAA, you Tigers to their first NCAA know, you only do that for Tournament appearance a few hours, or whatever. That’s it,” Pearl said. “Then you move on and go back to focusing on the things that you are at Auburn to do as a student-athlete. It doesn’t dominate our process because it doesn’t dominate our time. The kids had to go through the process. They went through the process and they’re all certified as eligible and we moved on.”
The FBI and NCAA investigations have seemed secondary of late. Auburn (25-7) has been trying to celebrate winning a share of the SEC regular-season title while also dealing with the loss of forward Anfernee McLemore to a season-ending ankle injury in February. That’s left the Tigers with just eight players in their rotation and even more of the load has fallen on guards Bryce Brown and Mustapha Heron.
“I can tell you that we’ve overcome those things and we ended up having a pretty good season. We have much more to show and much more to accomplish,” Brown said.