Everything Bruce Pearl Said After Defeating Alabama

Full transcript and press conference video from the Auburn head coach after a historic win in Coleman Coliseum.

Auburn basketball head coach Bruce Pearl / Obtained from Auburn Tigers

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— No. 2 Alabama men's basketball fell to No. 1 Auburn 94-85 at home on Saturday.

Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl took to the podium to speak on both teams' performance during the postgame press conference.

Here’s everything Pearl said:

Full Transcript

Opening Statement:

“I think the thing I’m proudest of is that all eyes of college basketball were on the state of Alabama and the SEC. What this conference has done in men’s basketball is historic. And, you know, you never know whether or not a game can live up to the hype.

"We were very prepared. Coaches did a great job with the game plan. The kids executed early. You’ve got to play well early if you’re going to win on the road. We played well early. As you’d expected, Alabama came storming back, and the place was––I’ve never heard Coleman this loud.

"But it was a really clean game. It was a really clean game, which I was pleased about. Nate talked to his team about that, because that’s how the No. 1 teams in the country should act. That’s how they should compete. That’s how they should play. I was really pleased with that.

"I’m happy, because we have such balance. I’m happy for the kids from Alabama. This rivalry matters in the state, in every family. Every family’s divided. Every family’s got Auburn fans, and they’ve got Alabama fans. For Chaney [Johnson] and Denver [Jones], it was really big. And they both played really well. But I think the balance of our team was really significant.

"Last thing I’m just going to say is this: Denver Jones was sitting right here. I would appreciate, you folks in the media––I don’t know when the media’s going to talk about him being one of the best defensive players in college basketball. And we’ll do the research for you. If you look at his matchups, night in and night out. I mean, Mark Sears is one of the best players in college basketball. Period. And, not that he did it by himself, but he did a great job on Mark. Made his catches tough, stayed down, stayed between him and the basket. You know, how do you stay in front of Mark Sears? Hardly anybody can. Denver Jones did, and nobody talked about it. He doesn’t have enough blocked shots, or he doesn’t have enough steals. He’s one of the best defensive players in college basketball. He needs to be on the Naismith All-Defensive team."

On Auburn’s Offense Against Alabama:

“Alabama played drop and not hit back screens, and you’ve just got to bang shots behind them, and I thought our guys did. I thought our bigs set good screens. I thought we mixed up enough perimeter stuff where we could get clean looks with letting Chaney and Johni kind of go down in there and do some work. We had a nice balance of some inside out stuff.

"I thought Denver played great tonight. The thing we’ve done with Denver again is just like -- Denver go score. You’re a two-guard playing point, he’s doing an amazing job, now go score, that’s what you do. And as a result, the passes will become easy. Chad Baker-Mazara is a playmaker. He can score. He can shoot. He might look to make some tough passes, and he had a great assist-to-turnover ratio tonight."

On Maintaining the Lead Throughout Alabama’s Runs:

"We made eight of our last 10 field goals, that’s how you close out a game. I thought that Tahaad [Pettiford] hit a big one in transition, wasn’t afraid to take that shot, kind of blew the lead up a little bit. Chad Baker-Mazara, we didn’t have much offense running, we were trying to get the ball inside, and I don’t know if the score was tied, it was pretty close...bang, he hits a three-ball just with some experience.

"What our locker room feels good about right now is so many guys contributed. Chris Moore played seven minutes, was plus-17 and started for a banged-up Chad Baker-Mazara. So, when we talk about that lineup, and guys were all over Chris Moore. Everybody contributed. Dylan Cardwell fouls out and we lost one of our best defenders, we just didn’t panic. Late in the game, I am looking down and to say we got a couple guys fouled out. We managed."

“It says a lot about our resilience tonight, but we’ll see about Wednesday. I don’t know. I think there is something to the fact that they trust each other, they do. I thought we got fatigued in the second half, and did not guard with the same energy, multiple efforts. It hurt not having Dylan out there in the rotation, got a little thin. We managed.”

On Starting Both Halves Strong:

"I think what it does is it sends a message that we came here with the idea that we were going to try to win the game. We knew we’d have to play really well. We knew we’d have to bang shots. We knew we were going to get some clean looks. Every time you saw Miles Kelly or Denver coming off a screen, I’m sure they go, ‘Oh no.’ And I’m going, ‘Oh yeah.’ They’re open, they’re clean. They were great looks. You have to play well early on the road if you’re going to win, you have to win. Can’t give the home team any momentum."

On Chris Moore’s Defensive Impact:

“He’s such a physical defender, he’s such a great teammate. He’s been in the program five years and the guys all love him. He’s one of the favorite guys in the locker room and he’s so unselfish. He got three open 3s and I want him to take those open shots, and he probably feels bad that he didn’t bang them. But again, that’s part of our chemistry, part of our culture.”

On Potentially Playing Alabama After March 8:

“Well, you know, you got one more time, I guess. That’s a Final Four-good team. But there’s a long way to go. Just a long, long way to go. You look at our league with three number one’s, three teams on the one-line, a couple teams on the two-line.

"Look for Texas A&M to jump in there like that in the Sweet 16, and I don’t know. We just take them one at a time. We got Arkansas coming in on Wednesday. I am a big fan of making history and I do know that one-two’s are rare and we’ve got two road wins in the one-two matchup that I will cherish.”

On Pettiford and Baker-Mazara’s Late Threes:

“You know, it’s interesting. I didn’t call timeout in that stretch, and there was nothing very intricate about either one of those buckets. The one that Chad Baker-Mazara shot was kind of midway late in the clock. I thought we did a good job -- one of the things that we want to try to do is -- look, we like to play fast. We don’t play as fast as Alabama, but we like to play fast. So, we had some breaks, and we scored 94 points. We like to play fast, and we like to shoot the 3-ball too.

"But I didn’t want a track meet. So, there were times when I thought our guys did a good job of just running the offense. And we did a good job of just continuing to play through the inside. Neither one of those shots was anything brilliant offensively, Chad just pulls up, kind of with the clock running down. Nothing else is going on, makes a shot. Tahaad’s, I think his was in transition and, you know, he was clean. And it’s one of those shots, ‘Well maybe you should run offense in that situation.’ Well, he was clean, he can make that shot, I thought that was a little bit of a dagger.”

On Defending Alabama, Who Leads the Nation in Points Per Game:

“You just can’t leave them. You’ve got to make them put the ball down the floor, and we tried to do the best we could to be disciplined, stay on their shooters. They did a good job driving the ball to the basket, and I thought we did a pretty good job making them make tough 2s.”

On Chaney Johnson’s Performance:

“There were two looks we put in that we thought we could get him an open shot. I think it said something to Chaney, like, ‘These are two looks for me to actually shoot it.’ He’ll get some shots on some inside-out, get a few things, but no. You’re going to bang a couple. And he knocked them down. I did the same thing with Johni, too. We got four threes from those guys. Part of it was we dialed up a couple open shots.”

On National Player of the Year Candidate Johni Broome Playing Through an Injury:

“He sucked it up, he really did. He was tired early in the second half. You could tell he was dragging a little bit. I was worried we were going to run out of gas, especially with Dylan in foul trouble. But again, found a way, sucked it up, made history. Big win in here. But look, however many we’ve got left in the regular season, it’s just too early to talk about anything other than Arkansas on Wednesday.”

On Baker-Mazara Playing Through an Injury:

“Chad is so banged up, and I just wasn’t sure he was going to play tonight. He got hurt yesterday in practice. But he’s a gamer, and he’s got some toughness, and he’s got some real skill. He knows how to play and he’s such a great passer. He’s a dangerous player. I’ve got to go look at that. Obviously, we don’t want that extra whatever to happen, obviously they got tangled up. The time and score, that wasn’t timely.”

On Johni Broome's Performance:

"We didn’t do anything too terribly fancy. We just gave him the ball, and they don’t double. They thought they could play him one-on-one, and they did a pretty good job on him. He missed nine shots, he made seven or eight. He had his double-double, and it was enough to get it done."

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