What is next for Auburn, Pearl?

Things came crashing down for the Auburn basketball program on Sunday evening, and now no one is quite sure what happens next for Bruce Pearl. Not even Paul Finebaum.

After an embarrassing 84-53 NCAA Tournament loss to Clemson ended the Tigers season in the Round of 32, the sometimes polarizing SEC Network personality gave an honest take on what he expects next for Pearl and the Auburn basketball program.

Finebaum was asked to speculate on the three-year stock outlook of Pearl at Auburn and Avery Johnson at Alabama during an interview with WJOX-FM in Birmingham, and Tigers fans may cringe at his reply.

After saying he’d increase his fictitious position in Johnson’s stock with the Crimson Tide, he was not nearly as kind to Pearl, who has seen Auburn’s most successful basketball season in recent memory somewhat spoiled by the cloud of an FBI investigation that led to the indictment of former Auburn assistant coach Chuck Person.

“I’m not buying any stock in Bruce Pearl’s future,” Finebaum said. “I just don’t know where it goes from here. Because I don’t know. I don’t know what the school is thinking, I don’t know what the new athletic director is thinking.

“I will say as you win and as you advance in the NCAA Tournament sometimes administrators have been known to look past whatever issues are out there, but after losing by 18 to Alabama in the SEC Tournament and that horror show last night in San Diego, I don’t think that’s going to be a factor here. I think Bruce Pearl will be judged by the merits of what he did didn’t do.”