Bruce Pearl retires: Auburn coach abruptly steps down after 11-year tenure, greatest run in program history

College basketball has been hit with a huge coaching retirement decision for a second straight preseason. Auburn's Bruce Pearl is stepping down from his post, effective immediately, the school announced Monday, after CBS Sports reported the news. Pearl "will move into an ambassador's role in the athletic department as special assistant to the athletics director," per the school.

Pearl's decision comes less than a year after Virginia's Tony Bennett shockingly stepped away in October 2024.

After an offseason of considering whether or not to retire, Pearl came to terms with his decision and made it final on Monday morning, sources said. He'd been linked to a potential Senate run in Alabama in recent months as well, but CBS Sports' sources had downplayed the likelihood that Pearl would go into politics this year. 

Turns out, that was accurate. 

Auburn released a video of Pearl announcing his decision to step down on Monday afternoon, and in it, he revealed he'd stay on with the school in an advisory role — opting not to go into politics.

The 65-year-old Pearl has been a head coach dating back to 1992, when he first got a chance running a program at Division II Southern Indiana where, in 1995, he won a D-II national championship. Pearl then coached at Milwaukee from 2001-05, at Tennessee from 2005-11 and, since 2014, has guided Auburn under its greatest run in school history. Pearl leaves on a high note, having taken the Tigers to the Final Four with a No. 1 seed last season. He also took Auburn to its first Final Four in 2019. 

His career record ends at 706-268 (due to NCAA penalties, his record is officially 694-270), with 477 of those victories at the D-I level. His 232 wins at Auburn is a school record, as are his five conference titles. 

"Eleven years ago, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime to become the head basketball coach at Auburn, and it has been nothing short of amazing," Pearl said in a statement. "With the Auburn Family's unwavering support, we have built a program from the ground up and taken it to heights it had never reached before. Not only have we won championships, but we have built the best home-court advantage in college basketball, we've invested in this community and changed lives, and we've developed and graduated Auburn men. We built a program with the core tenants of faith, family and passion, and together, we made history. I hope we have made Auburn proud.

"I have been at this for almost 50 years and truthfully as hard as it is for me to say this, I have come to the realization that it's time for me to step aside. Being the head coach at Auburn has been the privilege of my life." 

Pearl's departure means college basketball coaching is losing one of its most prominent people. Pearl has been a high-profile presence both in terms of his winning and his willingness to provide a quote for the media, even well before he got to Auburn in 2014. He made SEC history by becoming the first and only coach to guide two schools (Tennessee and Auburn) to their first No. 1 ranking in program history.

Arrived at Auburn after controversy

Pearl's path to Auburn was clouded in controversy, and in fact he had two cases that pushed him outside of Division I before the most fruitful stage of his career. He received a three-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA in 2011 as his unprecedented run of success at Tennessee — where he took the Vols to No. 1 for the first time, in 2008 — came to an end after an investigation found he lied to NCAA investigators about the program's impermissible contact with prospects. That punishment came as a result of Pearl hosting then-recruit Aaron Craft for a cookout at his home in the late 2000s. Pearl was forced to leave coaching for three years as a result.

That was the second time Pearl was wrapped up in an NCAA investigation, along with a recruiting scandal as an assistant at Iowa in the late 1980s involving Deon Thomas, who signed with Illinois. Pearl's role centered around him secretly recording a phone conversation with Thomas, as he tried to entrap the player into admitting Illinois offered him $80,000 and a car to choose the Illini over playing at Iowa, where Pearl was an assistant at the time. Pearl subsequently went to D-II Southern Indiana as a head coach and built a national power. 

Flash forward to 2014 — after success at Milwaukee and his rise-before-the-fall at Tennessee — and Auburn was a program mired in apathy. The team had posted just one winning record in SEC play from 2001-17. It was one of the three or four worst high-major jobs in the sport. After sitting on the sidelines due to NCAA punishment, Pearl needed a job and Auburn needed hope. 

So Auburn made the move, and in doing so, made a decision that would lift it to one of the 10-15 best programs in the sport over the ensuing 11 years. Last season was the greatest in school history: a 1-seed, an SEC title and a school-record 32 wins before falling to eventual NCAA champion Florida in the national semifinals. 

Turned around the Tigers

Pearl landed at Auburn's private airport on March 18, 2014, to cheers from win-starved students, who yelped, "Let-Bruce-loose! Let-Bruce-loose!" — an acknowledgement of the NCAA punishments that had led him to that tarmac that afternoon.

"Hey!" Pearl said in his first public statement to the Auburn faithful. "I don't know how long it's going to take, but I want this same reception when we come back with an SEC championship! War Eagle!"

Pearl would go on to capture his first SEC championship in 2018, then win four more in the ensuing years. He turned Auburn from an SEC doormat into a championship-level program. Pearl's teams were excellent at defending the rim, annually ranking near the top of the country in block percentage. He recruited the transfer portal at an extremely high level, helping bigs like Walker Kessler and Johni Broome turn into the best versions of themselves. Broome, whose best college option out of high school was Morehead State, was the second best player in the sport last season, pushing Duke freshman Cooper Flagg for national player of the year honors deep into March.

In all, Pearl recruited seven NBA Draft picks from 2019-2025, including 2022 No. 3 overall pick Jabari Smith Jr. 

Pearl also elevated Auburn into a new zip code on the recruiting trail. A stunning stat that speaks to how things changed on the Plains: The top 11 players that Auburn has landed in the internet era were all recruited by Pearl. He also started AUTlive, an Auburn-focused cancer-fighting initiative that raised millions in the past decade.

Steven Pearl to take over with a five-year contract

Now, Auburn shifts into a new era — with a familiar name. Steven Pearl, Bruce's son, has been promoted to full-time head coach. Steven is 38 and has only ever coached in college while working for his father. In recent years, the Pearl family and Auburn's administration went back and forth over whether Steven would be formally written into contracts as the coach-in-waiting. That never came to pass, per sources, but ultimately it didn't matter with Bruce's late-September resignation. 

A last-minute push to get Bruce to coach one more year didn't materialize, and so Auburn athletic director John Cohen signed off on a five-year contract for Steven Pearl, who has been with the program since his father took over in 2014.

"I'm incredibly grateful to President Dr. (Christopher) Roberts, Athletics Director John Cohen, and the entire Auburn leadership team for entrusting me with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Steven Pearl said. "I've spent my lifetime preparing for this moment, learning from one of the best in BP, and building a foundation rooted in character, hard work, and team-first values. We're not starting over — we're building forward, with the same principles that have made Auburn Basketball elite. I'm honored to lead this program, and I'm ready to rise to the moment."

Steven Pearl grew into a key defensive tactician for the program in recent years; Auburn ranked top-10 in defensive at KenPom three of the past four seasons. 

As for the roster, defections aren't expected, but technically each Auburn player will have a 30-day window to enter the transfer portal due to the coaching change. The Tigers lost all but one rotation member from last year's Final Four club, but the Tigers still have a talent-laden roster, headlined by lone returner Tahaad Pettiford. The sophomore lefty is slated to be one of the SEC's top guards. Auburn also has ballyhooed transfer forwards in KeShawn Murphy (from Mississippi State) and Keyshawn Hall (from UCF), who would have serious markets if they choose to hit free agency. 

With Bruce Pearl as coach, Auburn had been projected by most human voters and computer metrics to be a top 25-caliber team heading into November. 

Bruce Pearl's Division I record

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