After the Auburn basketball team lost to the Tennessee Volunteers in the regular season finale, it concluded what a disappointing first season under head coach Steven Pearl. With the Auburn basketball program dealing with a March Madness fate of not competing in the national tournament, the team will be participating in the NIT, as Pearl goes into why.

While some big-named teams might formally end their season after not making the national tournament, Pearl and the Tigers have opted to play in the NIT to end the year with some positivity. Pearl would explain how he is not the type to “take my ball and go home.”

“I'm here to coach basketball,” Pearl said, via The Next Round on X, formerly Twitter. “The guys on my roster are here to play basketball. We're all here to compete. I'm not going to duck away from an opportunity to go out there and prepare and compete and play basketball, because that's what we're here to do…So I just see it as an unbelievable opportunity for our guys to go out there and just compete on a stage.”

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“And obviously, our goal is to not play in the NIT; our goal is playing in the NCAA Tournament,” Pearl continued. “But that didn't happen this year. And we have an opportunity to go play a tournament that's nationally televised, and continue to play basketball for these next few weeks…I'm of the mindset of like, let's just go play, let's go hoop and have some fun with it.”

At any rate, the Auburn basketball team now prepares for the South Alabama Jaguars on Tuesday night in the first round of the NIT.