Auburn's confidence high as Steven Pearl era gets underway

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Steven Pearl took the podium on Wednesday at SEC Basketball Media Days, his first as head coach of the Auburn men’s basketball team.

It’s new but familiar territory for the man who roughly three weeks ago succeeded his father, Auburn’s all-time winningest coach Bruce Pearl.

The younger Pearl has been on the staff for 11 years, working his way up to associate head coach and defensive coordinator over the past two seasons. Stepping into this role always seemed like a natural progression, it was just a question of timing.

“B.P. and I have been having hypothetical conversations about his departure for years now,” Pearl said. “Didn’t get to a point where he felt like it was time until two weeks leading up to the decision.”

Moving on from a Hall of Fame-caliber head coach comes with the risk of losing players, but Auburn retained all 12 players on scholarship.

One of the biggest concerns was losing Tahaad Pettiford, the sophomore guard who made a splash during his rookie season and earned SEC All-Freshman Team honors. Pettiford assured he didn’t hesitate when hearing the news, saying he’s “100% committed” to the program.

“If S.P. would’ve been the coach last year, I still would have been at Auburn,” Pettiford said. “He’s the son of Bruce Pearl. I mean, that should say enough right there. But just, him having the coaching experience that he had under B.P., being around the coaching staff for such a long time, I knew he was ready for it, no matter what.”

Senior transfer Keyshawn Hall landed at Auburn with the impression that he’d be coached by an all-time great. But despite the change in title, Hall said the former coach is still making an impact.

“He’s still involved,” Hall said. “He’s still texting my mother to this day. He still texts me. He’ll be at practice, too, so he still gets on the guys ... He talks to us mostly every week, so that’s been great.”

Senior forward KeShawn Murphy said the team handled the coaching change with maturity.

“We understood that if we (were) going to get some things done, it was going to have to be together,” Murphy said. “The changes we made, it wasn’t so much a change, it was much more of us building on what was going on throughout the summer, and we did that maturely.”

As for Pearl, he’s ready to go.

“It didn’t hit me until I showed up at the gym at Neville Arena when B.P. was filming his goodbye video," Pearl said. "John (Cohen) pulled me aside and was like, ‘Hey, you’re the guy.’ I’m like ‘Alright, here we go.’”

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