Happy about the hire. Even though his name had been thrown around the last few days, I never even seriously considered Pearl coming here. Why would a guy with his credentials come to a basketball shit hole like Auburn? There are several jobs opening up around the country with much more potential and recent success than ours, including Virginia Tech in the ACC.
As many have said, name one coach that has gone on to greater success after a stint at AU. Here's the thing. Tony Barbee didn't become a shitty coach overnight. Lebo proved he could win somewhere else. Just about any coach around the country can handle the X's and O's...but it's about the Jimmy's and Joe's. No one has been able to recruit to this program for over 15 years. Why? They invested the money in a badly needed new arena and made the game experience 10X what it was. And the program is in worse shape than it's ever been.
WT and I were going back and forth on this and he mentioned what some have talked about. Is it the shoe/apparel contract? Some feel we're black balled ($1 to WT) because of it and we're never going to get the players as long as we're with Under Armour. If that's the case, how does Pearl overcome that? How does Pearl finally get legit D1 players to come to Auburn? If he can't, he'll just be added to the list of failed AU Corches.
I'm not trying to be negative but 15+ years of being a laughing stock in an overall shitty league has just jaded me. Love the fact that JJ or whoever is responsible for this hire went after the splash hire...the biggest name available. Great job!!! But, how does Bruce Pearl do what few before him have been able to do...get top notch players to sign with Auburn.