If Auburn isn't able to slow the Arkansas and Georgia men's basketball teams this week, first-year Tigers coach Bruce Pearl could be staring at a brand new predicament.
"I've never had a losing season in coaching," Pearl said Monday on the SEC teleconference.
Auburn stunned LSU in Baton Rouge last Thursday night but could not build on the upset, losing to visiting Ole Miss on Saturday night. The loss to the Rebels dropped the Tigers to 11-12 overall and 3-7 within the league, leaving Pearl with a steep challenge this week against a pair of likely NCAA tournament invitees.
Pearl's toughest season as a coach occurred in 2002, when his first Wisconsin-Milwaukee team went 16-13. His sixth and final season at Tennessee resulted in a 19-15 team that limped down the stretch in 2011, but he's otherwise overseen 17 20-win seasons.
"There is a chance that this team doesn't finish above .500, but I can tell you that's it still a team that I've enjoyed coaching," he said. "They are still listening to the game plans and are still competing, and from a standpoint of being a teacher and a coach, we're still engaged. I'm enjoying this group, and I'm blessed to be back in coaching."
That certainly will be the case tonight when Auburn hosts Arkansas. The last time a Pearl-coached team faced the Razorbacks, he had to watch from a Fayetteville hotel as the result of an eight-game suspension administered by league commissioner Mike Slive.
Auburn's highlights under Pearl include the victory at LSU, a win over visiting Xavier and an arena that is filled to capacity or close.
"I said when Bruce got hired that he would be great for the league," South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. "He brings a dynamic personality and an excitement to everything that he's a part of. When we went there, it was sold out with people hanging from the rafters. We were up five with four to play, and we were affected by their crowd."
Said Pearl: "It's way better than we deserve. I am so grateful to our fans. We've sold out several games, and they've just been an event. This past weekend, there was traffic in Auburn and restaurants were packed. It felt like a home football game."
Pearl is racking up a lot of gridiron references at a school that won college football's 2010 national championship and finished runner-up in 2013.
"We only brought back four of 13 scholarship guys in the fall, and that equates in football to 26 scholarships out of 85," he said. "It's difficult to have a team that returns so little to play the way I want them to play. We would like to press more and have a faster tempo, and we would like to play some zone (defense) and have more length.
"There are a lot of things we would like to do, but we have to focus on the things we can do."
Sitting with six
The SEC has six teams projected in the NCAA tournament, according to Joe Lunardi's latest bracket on ESPN. Kentucky remains a projected No. 1 seed, while Arkansas is a 6 seed, Georgia an 8 seed, Ole Miss and Texas A&M 10 seeds and LSU an 11 seed.
Leading all conferences with seven projected representatives are the Big Ten and the Big 12.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.