Retired Auburn Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl is a vocal opponent of the Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nate Oats, his former adversary during the IBOB's most intense era ever, bringing back Charles Bediako from the NBA's G League.
Bediako has since been removed by the NCAA. During his second tenure in Tuscaloosa after getting to play in the San Antonio/Austin Spurs, Denver Nuggets/Grand Rapids Gold, and Detroit Pistons/Motor City Spurs organizations, with professional facilities, Bediako was only 3-2 at Alabama as a 23-year-old.
As Saturday Down South's David Wasson writes, his own comments have put Bruce in a strange role as a vocal proponent of the NCAA, which banished him from the sport during the former Tennessee Volunteers head coach's tenure on Rocky Top and went after him two different times about his recruiting methods.
"Listen, we aren’t going to sit here behind this keyboard and re-adjudicate Oats’ role within the Bediako drama. Been there, done that," Wasson prefaced before saying, "And we also aren’t going to sit here behind this keyboard and pretend that Pearl is the only coach who has danced with the NCAA over the years – even if he sports an unsightly 0-2-1 record against the organization. Cheating happens. Rules get broken all the time and are bent into pretzel-like contortions even more to suit one’s means.
"But the hypocrisy of anyone with said 0-2-1 record against the NCAA lobbing stones at someone else’s window is humorous and marvelously tone deaf to witness. Bruce Pearl, champion of rules-followers everywhere, stuck up for the NCAA on Tuesday night. We definitely didn’t have that on our 2025-26 college basketball bingo card."
Bruce Pearl rightfully has different view on NCAA after Auburn success
Let's get real for a second. Why would Pearl not like the NCAA at this point, after he was able to reel in two NBA talents in Jabari Smith and Walker Kessler during the murkiest era of NIL/rev-share in 2021, and he's since made a Final Four with talent who were given extra years of eligibility and certainly weren't cheap during their upperclassmen years?
Pearl used the system to his advantage and benefited in a big way. Sure, he didn't play by the rules and was caught, but those rules were archaic in the 2010s. Pearl was done right by the NCAA when the system switched up and allowed schools to pay players.
Amends have been made between Pearl and the NCAA. Whatever beef he had with Mark Emmert went away towards the end of his tenure, and Charlie Baker has certainly never had a problem with him since taking over in 2023. No investigation went into how Bruce handed his son Steven the program in a way that didn't allow any outside candidates a realistic shot.
Why would Bruce still hate the NCAA more than the Tide? Bruce will always wear Orange and Blue, and, ipso facto, also hate Crimson elephants.