Bruce Pearl got a major shoutout from Alex Kirshner of the Split Zone Duo podcast following Notre Dame’s poaching of Penn State head basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry. Kirshner noted how tough it is for a football school to generate interest in its hoops program, lauding Pearl for being able to do so at Auburn.
“Sometimes I think the most impactful MBB coach of his era is Bruce Pearl, because he made Auburn into a place that will probably pay up for basketball long after he’s gone,” Kirshner said. “This take is a stretch but it comes to my mind every now and then. Thinking of it again re: Penn State. Not sure what Penn State’s offer was to Shrewsberry, and I imagine they will leak very attractive terms in the coming days, and they might even be accurate. But it’s just hard to get a football school fully into gear for basketball. Few have done it.”
Shrewsberry’s Nittany Lions went 37-31 during the two seasons he coached in Happy Valley. Penn State had a nine-game improvement in year two from his first season.
Bruce Pearl is ‘hard to replicate’
Josh Vitale, formerly of The Montgomery Advertiser, chimed in on Kirshner’s thread, saying that Bruce Pearl was “hard to replicate.”
“I think this is a fair take,” Vitale said. “I also think it’s hard to replicate Pearl at Auburn because it was a perfect storm. Already had baggage, got rolled up in a new scandal that made it unlikely anyone would try that hard to poach him, then pulled off a miracle run in the midst of it.”
Pearl has led the Tigers to four of the last five NCAA tournaments, getting AU closer to a championship in the College Football Playoff era than either Gus Malzahn or Bryan Harsin has.
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