Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl is retiring.
Pearl announced his decision Monday on the heels of his best season at Auburn and roughly six weeks from the start of Auburn’s new basketball season on Nov. 3. He made his announcement in a teary-eyed, 15-minute video released by Auburn.
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“For me, it’s time,” Pearl said. “I’ve been a part of college basketball for almost 50 years. And the truth is, it’s time. I told myself that when I got to the point where I could not give it my all, where I wasn’t necessarily 100% or I couldn’t be the relentless competitor that you expected of me, that it was going to be time.
“As hard as it is to say this, I reached the realization that it’s time for me to step aside.”
Pearl’s son will take over
Pearl’s son, Steven Pearl, will take over as Auburn’s coach. Auburn announced the succession plan shortly after Bruce made his retirement official on Monday.
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Steven, 38, has been an assistant under Pearl during his tenure at Auburn and played for his father as a reserve forward at Tennessee. He has no previous head-coaching experience. He’ll take over with a five-year contract. Auburn did not announce the terms of the deal.
Pearl didn’t address the succession plan directly in his video but did allude to Steven taking his place.
“The DNA of this program, it won’t be changing,” Pearl said. “I am incredibly confident in the future of this basketball program.”
Pearl downplays Senate speculation
Pearl downplayed speculation that he was considering a run for the U.S. Senate representing Alabama, declaring he would instead remain around the Auburn program and that he looks “forward to the opportunity to continue serving the Auburn family.”
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“Many of you know that I thought and prayed about maybe running for the United States Senate, maybe to be the next great senator from the state of Alabama,” Pearl said. “That would have required leaving Auburn. And instead, the university has given me an opportunity to stay here and be Auburn’s senator.”
Pearl’s basketball legacy
Pearl, 65, coached Auburn for 11 seasons. The Tigers have advanced to six of the past seven NCAA tournaments under Pearl’s watch. They advanced to the Final Four twice, including in 2025 with All-American Johni Broome at center. The Final Four appearances were the first in the program’s history.
Pearl previously served as the head coach at Tennessee for six seasons and at Milwaukee for four seasons before that. Pearl coached Milwaukee to the NCAA tournament twice and Tennessee to the NCAA tournament in each of his six seasons.
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Pearl will retire with a 477-224 Division I record (.680) as an NCAA head coach. He was a three-time Horizon League Coach of the Year at Milwaukee and was named SEC Coach of the Year four times, twice each at Tennessee and Auburn.
Prior to joining Milwaukee, Pearl coached at Southern Indiana, which just became a Division I program in June.
Pearl was named the Associated Press National Coach of the Year in 2025 for coaching an Auburn team that spent much of the season ranked No. 1 in the country. The Tigers finished 32-6 and lost to eventual national champion Florida in the Final Four.
Scandal at Tennessee
Tennessee fired Pearl in 2011 amid a scandal in which Pearl was found to have committed recruiting violations and then lied to the NCAA during its investigation into the violations. The NCAA charged Pearl with unethical conduct and issued him a three-year show-cause penalty for his role in the scandal.
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The scandal prompted Tennessee to dismiss Pearl despite his role in developing Tennessee into an SEC power and NCAA tournament mainstay. Prior to Pearl’s arrival, Tennessee had missed the NCAA tournament in four consecutive seasons. In the 22 seasons before he took over, Tennessee made the NCAA tournament just five times.
Pearl was out of college basketball for three years after the scandal before joining Auburn in 2014. There, he had a similar on-court impact on the Tigers as he did at Tennessee. Prior to Pearl’s arrival, Auburn had missed the 14 previous NCAA tournaments and had made just three of the previous 29.
The Tigers missed the tournament in Pearl’s first three seasons, but they eventually became mainstays, missing just one tournament in his final eight seasons as head coach.
