Texas A&M Aggies head coach Bucky McMillan had an enlightening appearance on The Next Round Live this week. What he said on the air may have absolved Steven Pearl and his failures with the Auburn Tigers during the 2025-26 season.
Of course, when we say "failures," we're not taking anything away from the team's resilient NIT Championship run. The fact that the Tigers were in that tournament, though, and not March Madness, is a good symbol for Steven's first season being far from ideal.
As McMillan explained, though, the SEC is a player's league, unlike the Southern Conference, where he previously coached the Samford Bulldogs in Homewood. Per McMillan, "When I coached at Samford in the SoCon, of any league I've coached in, that was the most you better be on it tonight league, in my opinion, even more than the SEC... In the SEC, it's a player's game."
Steven didn't pick this team. While he had a hand in recruiting, this was a roster that his father, Bruce, signed off on. BP was supposed to be the head coach last year and only stepped down in September. He decided the roster he left Steven with wasn't sticking around for. Bruce was supposed to run for political office but didn't. His retirement may have had a lot to do with knowing his players weren't up to snuff in a player's league.
When you look at the way AU's season unfolded in 2025-26, it's clear that the players stood in their own way.
Keyshawn Hall and KeShawn Murphy helped sink Auburn's season
It's unfortunate that two of the Tigers' most talented ballers never meshed in the Neville Arena home locker room. The team's leading scorer and rebounder, Keyshawn Hall, and the team's leading shot-blocker and the No. 4 scorer and No. 2 rebounder, KeShawn Murphy, each had issues behind the scenes that sunk the season.
Pearl didn't feel Murphy gave enough effort, whether during games or in practice, and suspended him during the regular season. It didn't last long, but Hall clearly had friction with Pearl all year. Murphy, meanwhile, quit on the team before it made its NIT run. Pearl didn't even reveal the reason why.
Perhaps, in many ways, the lack of more concrete details on the issues means Steven ran a tight ship and didn't let leakers get the word out on what the real issues were. Perhaps it wasn't deeper than the mild speculation about those players being too me-first.
Either way, it's a player's game, and Steven is merely partaking in it with as much power as he could possibly wield in his position. For a head coach entering his second year at the helm, that's more than most in his position because he is the son of the program's all-time winningest head coach. At the same time, Steven has players who were brought to Auburn to play for his father, so it's not as though there aren't challenges he has to overcome being the long-time legendary coach's son and replacement.
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