Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl retiring; son Steven to take over as head coach: Reports

Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl is retiring, according to multiple reports, ending his college coaching career 42 days before Auburn’s first game of the 2025-26 season.

Pearl’s son Steven, the Tigers’ associate head coach, is expected to take over the team.

Pearl, 65, leaves college basketball with a 477-224 (.680) overall record, including 246-125 (.663) in the last 11 years at Auburn. He guided Auburn to the school’s second Final Four last season, earning the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament after winning the SEC regular season championship. The Tigers lost to Florida, 79-73, in an all-SEC national semifinal.

Over the last decade Pearl transformed Auburn, long an afterthought in college hoops and marred in nearly a decade of losing seasons before he took over in 2014, to one of the top programs in the country. Pearl took Auburn to two Final Four and won at least a share of three SEC regular season titles and two conference tournament championships.

There have been rumors for months that Pearl, known for being outspoken on social media platforms about a variety of political topics, might consider a run for public office. He has been talked about as a potential candidate to replace fellow Republican Tommy Tuberville as a U.S. senator from Alabama. (Tuberville, who is leaving the Senate to run for governor of Alabama, was Auburn’s football coach from 1999 to 2008.) Pearl addressed those rumors in September, telling reporters, “It’s certainly something that I had considered. It’s something I thought a great deal about, but obviously I’m here today and I’m in practice and I’ve got practice tomorrow.”

Before Auburn, Pearl was the head coach at Tennessee (2005-11), Milwaukee (2001-05) and Division II Southern Indiana (1992-2001). He took the Vols to the NCAA Tournament in each of his six seasons, reaching three Sweet 16s and one Elite Eight. He was fired in 2011 after the NCAA charged him with unethical conduct for lying during an investigation into recruiting violations. Auburn hired him five months before his three-year show-cause penalty ended.

Steven Pearl, 38, has been on his father’s staff since he got to Auburn and was promoted to associate head coach in August. He played for Bruce at Tennessee from 2007 to 2011.

Steven is 1-0 as Auburn’s head coach, having filled in for Bruce as acting head coach back in December 2021 when Bruce served a two-game suspension as part of NCAA penalties related to former Auburn associate head coach Chuck Person, who was found to have violated ethical conduct rules. Auburn faced a variety of penalties for the findings in that investigation, including a self-imposed 2020-2021 postseason ban. According to the NCAA’s release at the time, Pearl “failed to adequately monitor the associate head coach and did not promote an atmosphere of compliance.”

Steven acted as head coach in Auburn’s 70-44 win over North Alabama on Dec. 14, 2021. (Another Auburn assistant filled in for Bruce during the Tigers’ 99-68 win over Nebraska three days prior.)

(Photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

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