Auburn Basketball: Bruce Pearl ranked one of the three best coaches in SEC

Auburn's Bruce Pearl is inside the top three of these rankings.

Author:
Steve Simpson
Publish date:
Sep 6, 2023 2:34 PM EDT

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The College Basketball Report recently released their ranking of the SEC's basketball coaches. The rankings were based on "current ability" whatever that means.

Auburn's Bruce Pearl was ranked third behind Alabama's Nate Oats and Arkansas's Eric Musselman. Auburn fans may take exception to this, so let's look at each coaches careers, since "current ability" wasn't defined.

Bruce Pearl

Bruce Pearl is one of the top coaches in all of college basketball and will be a hall of fame coach once his career is finished. His resume is outstanding with a record of building successful programs everywhere he has coached.

In his 27 seasons as a head coach, he has guided his teams to the NCAA Tournament 20 times (would be 21 if not for the cancelation of the 2020 postseason) and and a 616-243 (.717) winning record. Pearl is 17-11 (.607) in the NCAA Tournament.

Pearl is the only head coach (football or men’s basketball) in SEC history to lead two programs to a No. 1 national ranking (Auburn in 2022 and Tennessee in 2008).

He is just one of three head coaches to take four programs (three at the Division I level) to the Sweet 16, joining Lon Kruger and Eddie Sutton.

He has set single-season wins records at four different schools with the most recent coming during the 2018-19 season when the Tigers won 30 games on their way to the Final Four.

Pearl is only the 11th coach in SEC history to win four conference titles in a 10-year span, joining the likes of Adolph Rupp (Kentucky), Billy Donovan (Florida), Nolan Richardson (Arkansas) and Rick Pitino (Kentucky) among others.

Don't forget that Pearl has engineered one of, if not the, biggest turnarounds in college basketball. Before He arrived on the plains in 2014 the Tigers had an average RPI of 191.8. In the past four seasons, the Tigers finished their campaign 16th, 13th, 27th and 11th respectively in the final RPI.

From 2017-20, Auburn joined the company of college basketball blue bloods, Duke, Kansas and Kentucky winning at least 25 games each year.

Nate Oats

Nate Oats is one of the hot names in college basketball the last several years. He has only been a head coach on the college level for the last 8 years, four at Buffalo and four at Alabama. Before that he was a very successful high school coach for 12 years.

Oats has a record of 188-84 (.691) as a Division 1 head coach. He won three MAC Tournaments and two regular season MAC titles while at Buffalo. Since arriving in Tuscaloosa, Oats has won two SEC Tournaments and two SEC regular season titles. He has coached in 11 NCAA tournament games going 6-5 (.545) in those contests. His teams have not advanced beyond the Sweet 16.

Eric Musselman

Eric Musselman is another of the most talked about coaches in college basketball. He has been a college head coach for 8 years, four at Nevada and four at Arkansas. Prior to coaching in the college ranks, he was an NBA Coach for 14 years.

As a college coach, Musselman has a record of 205-76 (.729). At Nevada he won three MWC regular season championships and one MWC Tournament championship. He has coached in 16 NCAA Tournament games posting a 10-6 (.625) record. At Arkansas his team have reached the Elite Eight twice.

So is Bruce Pearl the third best coach in the SEC right now or does he deserve the top spot? We believe that he is no lower than the second best coach in the conference and a good argument could be made that he is the best coach in the conference.