Former Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl did not hide his dissatisfaction with the Tigers being left out of this year’s Big Dance.
Auburn was among the first four out of the NCAA tournament this year alongside Oklahoma, San Diego State, and Indiana. Pearl was part of the panel during CBS’s March Madness selection show and reacted live to his Tigers getting snubbed.
Pearl unsurprisingly took umbrage with the decision, pointing out that Auburn played one of the most daunting schedules in the country this season.
“Auburn beat three champions this year,” Pearl said. “They beat Florida. They beat St. John’s. And they beat Arkansas. They played the toughest schedule in the country. Don’t know if they were rewarded for it.”
Pearl followed by naming the team he felt did not deserve a spot as much as Auburn did.
“For me, if you’ve got to put one in, who’d you take out? For me, SMU with a 191 out-of-conference strength of schedule. I don’t know that they should have been rewarded.”
Bruce Pearl: "Auburn beat 3 champions this year. They beat Florida, they beat St. John's, and they beat Arkansas. They played the toughest schedule in the country, don't know if they were rewarded for it." pic.twitter.com/8aUDmFRBo8
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 15, 2026
Pearl added that 20-13 SMU had only won five games away from the friendly confines of Moody Coliseum, with two of those wins coming at neutral sites. As a counterpoint, co-panelist Clark Kellogg argued that the ultimate metric is wins and losses, and that Auburn’s 17-16 record made it difficult for them to earn an at-large bid.
Bruce may be finding it hard to be impartial, given that his son Steven took over for him at Auburn. The Tigers’ snub ends their four-year run of making the NCAA tournament, the second-longest streak in program history. The exclusion comes just a year after Auburn made it all the way to the Final Four.
