PRESSER: Steven Pearl at SEC TipOff '27

Steven Pearl (0:00)

Good morning, hopefully I can coach better than I plan having children. The timing, not so great. First off, I want to thank Commissioner Sankey for his vision and his leadership during these unparalleled times. I want to thank Garth for his leadership and just how much he fights for us as SEC head basketball coaches. I want to thank John Cohen, Janann Paul, Dr. Roberts, our administration, for the support they've given me in my short time at Auburn to give us the resources that we needed in order to build the team that we have this year. So obviously, excited about year two on the Plains, excited to have been able to have an off season. You don't realize how valuable an off season is until you finally have one. And really excited about this group.

It's a group that I think we had to address a lot of things last year that we were deficient in and I think we did those things. Being able to retain the two guys that came with me today, Tahad Pettiford and Kevin Overton was instrumental. And if people want to question why we played in the NIT, I think that was a great reason right there. Being able to keep those two guys, I think, allowed them to feel good and to be able to trust the things that we were doing at Auburn. So really excited about both those guys coming back and being able to build this around them.

And not just looking forward to finally being able to play against somebody else tomorrow night. So with that, take any questions. We'll go in the middle of the room on the third row.

Justin Ferguson (1:32)

Justin Ferguson, Harvard Reservers. Steven, how much have you been able to kind of see here in the preseason the depth that y'all were able to kind of build? Obviously, that was one of the weaker spots last season, especially towards the end. Only had about six or seven in the rotation. Just how much can you kind of feel that and sense that? And how much do you want to lean on that, like years past?

Steven Pearl (1:51)

Yeah, Ferg, I mean, we, you know, throughout this summer, dealing with injuries, you know, obviously dealing with some eligibility concerns, you know, throughout the summer, I think we were able to really lean into the depth that we had built in the portal, in the high school ranks, and obviously in our retention pieces that we brought back. And, you know, throughout the summer, if a guy went down with an injury, we were able to, you know, put somebody in his position and we were able to still have productive practices. Last year, you know, we had stretches during the season where if a guy was a little, you know, dinged up, we really couldn't have a productive practice because we only had six or seven guys that we felt like could play in the rotation. I'm in a place now this year where we feel like we have 13 guys that could really play meaningful minutes and contribute for us this year.

Now, our rotation won't be 13, but the ability to be able to deal with injuries, deal with foul trouble, and obviously, in this crazy role we live in, while we're still figuring out eligibility, it's nice to have that many pieces that you can plug and play as the year goes on.

Justin Ferguson (2:59)

Third row on the end.

Nathan King, Auburn 247 I think you mentioned a few months ago that KO was kind of a crucial recruiting piece for y'all in the offseason, calling other guys, talking to other guys. How much of that relationship was important in bringing to hardback? And then just overall, having a veteran back court for you in year two, how much of a difference does that make?

Steven Pearl (3:17)

Yeah, obviously, it really helps in your conversations with these kids in the portal when you're able to tell them, we're able to return two of the better guards in the SEC with Tahad and KO coming back. And obviously, being able to get their input, for me, was really important as a coach. One of the things that we've always done at Auburn is when we bring these guys on visits, we need our returning players to sign off on them because we're not going to bring in a low character player because of how talented he is. If he doesn't gel well with the guys that we have coming back. So, you know, Todd and KO had to sign off on a lot of the portal guys that we brought in this year. And you're right, KO was calling and texting all them. And then he was also calling and texting me every day asking for updates.