Auburnâs Bruce Pearl on football Signing Day success: âIt was Freezingâ
Auburn basketball head coach Bruce Pearl has a different recruiting than his football counterpart.
As Hugh Freeze said Wednesday during his National Signing Day press conference, he is asking high school athletes to help return Auburn football to its former glory.
Pearl’s pitch is different. Auburn doesn’t have much history in basketball before his tenure. And while Pearl has brought recruiting for Auburn basketball into a stratosphere its never seen before, he does it knowing he’s in a place where football remains the biggest priority.
Yesterday was the winter National Signing Day for football. Pearl reposted many of the tweets on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the football team’s exploits on what was a monumental day. Auburn signed what 247Sports regards as the No. 7 overall recruiting class in America.
Pearl has done his part in Freeze’s recruiting, frequently hosting football player visits at basketball games — including a slew of high school and transfer prospects at last weekend’s game against USC.
At Pearl’s press conference Thursday ahead of playing Alabama State at 7 p.m. Friday in Neville Arena, Pearl was asked about recruiting at Auburn, and how he lends his support.
Here’s what Pearl said…
“I’m just a fan. Hugh is my friend. I’m so happy for him and grateful that he has given us hope and that he’s got the kids believing and he’s got the community believing. Look, we coulda, shoulda beaten the top two teams in the country in Alabama and Georgia this year. Everybody saw that, with a challenged roster. What’s the man gonna do when he can line up and have some of the same ammunition that the opponents have. I’m just excited for it. So I just retweet that stuff occasionally just to lend my support. Yesterday was obviously a fun day. It was Freezing. I’m excited for him.
For us, I know that one thing that’s important is… it’s important to be able to provide an environment where football can take their prospects to what is one of the top home-court advantages in all of college basketball. I retweeted that yesterday also. Somebody put out that we were one of the top 10 venues in college basketball as far as the atmosphere is concerned. The first was Phog Allen (Fieldhouse). The fact that Auburn is on that list is something that we’ve worked to try to have. We can’t do that by ourselves. It’s because our fans care. The Auburn family comes out. The Jungle is amazing. That’s why I feel a responsibility to continue to show them good basketball. Play well, they’ll keep coming back.”
Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at [email protected]