Bruce Pearl has established himself as one of the greatest coaches in college basketball. However, he stepped down from the Auburn head coach position. His son, Steven Pearl, was his successor, and the world was shocked. Bruce Pearl has been the head coach of Auburn from 2014 to 2025. In his 9-year tenure, he reached the NCAA final four twice in 2019 and 2025. In 2019 and 2024, he also won the SEC tournament with Auburn.
As his son Steven Pearl took charge of the Auburn Tigers, there was a lot of doubt around whether or not he would be able to take up the responsibility. Unfortunately for him, he hasn’t had a huge impact like his father. Obviously, everyone knew Bruce Pearl was a different breed of coach, and Steven would need a lot of experience to get to that level. However, he has not impressed the fans with his first year in charge.
Auburn had a rather disappointing season with a 16-15 overall record and 7-11 in the conference. The Tigers are yet to play their last game in the SEC Tournament vs MS State, but they are at a high risk of not qualifying for the NCAA tournament. Recently, Steven Pearl was also on the receiving end of trolling. His locker room speech to his team did not impress the fans.
A clip of Pearl’s motivational speech for this team recently made the rounds on the internet. “You’ve played the toughest schedule in college basketball. You beat some of the best teams in the country. You beat the Big East champs. You’re the only team to go down to gamesville and beat the SEC champs. It’s about deserving victory. They are not gonna hand it to us, fellas. They are not gonna hand it to us. We gotta take it,” Steven Pearl said to motivate his team in the locker room.
“You want to see what a nepo hire looks like watch this clip…this 10x worse than Bronny James..this was a final 4 team a year ago,” one fan expressed his discontent.
Fans React to Steven Pearl’s Speech to His Auburn Team
The motivational speech by the Auburn head coach did not impress the fans one bit.
“When I watch that live, I thought this looks like a guy trying to pretend to be a coach,” one fan said.
“Bruce quits to go on a pro Israel tour and give hot takes about a team he quit on so his son could take over. Why Auburn allows him in the stadium is beyond me. He’s helping fans cheer on his son while the team loses game after game. Auburn AD should have said no to Steve,” one fan voiced his opinion.
“Bruce’s nepo boy is 5 BILLION times worse than Bronny. It’s absolutely diabolical what Bruce did to Auburn hoops by quitting so his son had to be the hire for HC,” one fan disagreed.
“This was extremely corny and a very tough watch. When they showed it on tv I knew they were fucked,” another commented.
“Bruce “called” out LeBron for getting the lakers to draft Bronny too,” one fan remembered.
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