Bruce Pearl won and reached the NCAA Tournament multiple times at Milwaukee and Tennessee. But he became a legend at Auburn, where he turned a football-mad legion of fans into a hardwood-crazy bunch.
Bruce Pearl Cements Legacy with Tigers’ Continued Success
Auburn plays its football games at Jordan-Hare Stadium. But it’s at the on-campus 9,121-seat Neville Arena, nicknamed the “Jungle,” where current Tigers students and alums have been doing their celebrating lately.
Kelvin Sampson is making his third Final Four appearance on Saturday while Bruce Pearl is making his second, but which coaches have the most appearances all-time?
Here are the 12 coaches that crack the list. pic.twitter.com/Vcba8jcWD4
— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) April 3, 2025
Coach Bruce Pearl, the charismatic Boston native who first tasted success at Milwaukee and then briefly turned Tennessee into a basketball powerhouse, has done the unthinkable at Auburn. In 11 years, he has turned the Tigers’ basketball program, famous previously solely as the place where Charles Barkley played, into a national powerhouse.
The Tigers went 49-75 in the four seasons that preceded Pearl’s arrival in March 2014. He’s gone 246-124 since, a .665 winning percentage, and led the school to six NCAA Tournaments and, more importantly, the first two Final Four appearances in program history. Auburn, 32-5 this season, will face SEC rival Florida Saturday night at 6:09 p.m. ET at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
College basketball broadcaster and writer John Fanta summed up Auburn’s ascent under Pearl with a post on X today:
“Auburn Final Four appearances before Bruce Pearl arrived: Zero. Auburn Final Four appearances in the last six NCAA Tournaments: Two. One of the best building jobs in all of college hoops, making the Tigers a basketball school.”
Barkley, a Hall-of-Famer, led the school to its first NCAA Tournament in 1984. Chuck Person, another long-time NBA player, guided the Tigers to the Elite Eight for the first time two years later. Auburn went dancing for five straight years between 1984 and 89 but only reached the NCAA Tournament three times in the next 29 years.
Enter Pearl. The team lost more than 50 games in his first three years at the helm before quickly moving up the ladder. The Tigers have gone 202-70 in the past eight years, including that inaugural Final Four appearance in 2019, a last-second loss to eventual champion Virginia that still nags at the fanbase.
KEEP READING: Bruce Pearl & Todd Golden’s Unique History, From Teammates to Final Four Rivals
Pearl has Auburn back in the spotlight with his Johni Broome-led 32-win squad. He’s already cemented his legacy here, but two more wins and he can ascend himself to Auburn immortality.
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