On Friday afternoon, Auburn basketball head coach Bruce Pearl and his Tigers saw their season come to a devastating end with a 78-76 loss vs Yale in the first round of the NCAA tournament, in a game played from Spokane, Washington. Auburn entered the tournament riding high after demolishing the competition en route to the SEC Tournament crown last week; however, Pearl's squad found themselves the victim of a massive March Madness upset on Friday, entering the game as the fourth seed in their side of the bracket.
After the game, some wondered whether Auburn may have overlooked their opponent and thus suffered the consequences as a result. However, Pearl himself is putting the public on notice that that notion is far from what really occurred.
“We didn't expect them to go away ever,” said Pearl, per CBS Sports College Basketball on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “Ever. Listen, this was not… it's funny, I heard Jay Bilas say some things today. Give Yale credit for making those plays. This has nothing to do with us not taking them seriously. nothing. They outplayed us in many categories. They made shots. They guarded us.”
Indeed, if the seeding numbers weren't by the team names on the scoreboard, one would be forgiven for assuming that Yale was regarded as the better team entering Friday's matchup.
A steady decline for the Tigers
In 2019, Bruce Pearl and the Auburn Tigers burst on the national scene by storming their way all the way to the NCAA Tournament Final Four, where they lost in a narrow contest to the eventual champion Virginia Cavaliers. After that season, it was understandable for some to assume that the Tigers might be well on their way to establishing themselves as a future powerhouse for college basketball moving forward.
However, although Auburn has been able to put together some regular season success in the years since, the furthest Pearl's squad has advanced in the tournament since that magical run has been the second round, which they've accomplished in each of the last two seasons leading up to this year's first round exit.
Perhaps the most talented Auburn squad in the years since was the 2021-2022 team, that featured the likes of future NBA first round draft picks Walker Kessler and Jabari Smith; however, that team ultimately bowed out to an upstart Miami team in March.
In any case, Bruce Pearl and the Tigers are now entering what figures to be a highly important offseason for the future direction of the franchise a bit earlier than they had hoped. While this year's Auburn basketball team did not necessarily have the high end talent of that 2022 squad, the Tigers raised eyebrows across the country with their recent run to the SEC Tournament crown just a few days ago, leading some to believe they could ride that momentum into the real big dance.
However, as we've seen so many times throughout the years, it is called “March Madness” for a very good reason.
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