Confident Auburn Tigers Look Like No. 1 Overall Seed in Beating Michigan State

The Auburn Tigers completed the puzzle on Sunday evening as they took down the Michigan State Spartans 70-64 in Atlanta to advance to their second Final Four in program history. They will face the Florida Gators for a chance to play in the national championship in San Antonio.

“I guess the first thought is that there are four teams left in the country, and Auburn is one of them. We couldn’t be happier,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said. He went on to say, “We’re going to the Final Four with four one-seeds. The four teams that advanced, they are the best teams in the country. They obviously doesn’t always happen.”

For Pearl it was a long time coming as he finally got revenge over Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo. The two had only one previous meeting in their history of the NCAA Tournament back in 2010, where Izzo’s Spartans defeated Pearl who was then coaching the Tennessee Volunteers.

“Michigan State is a historic, amazing, great team. Tom Izzo is a Hall of Fame coach,” Pearl said. “He wasn’t lying (about having the better players). That’s a great team that we just played.”

Auburn hadn't been playing its best basketball until the Tigers found themselves in the second half against the Michigan Wolverines in the Sweet 16. That confidence carried over as Auburn went on a 17-0 run after briefly falling behind 8-6 to the Spartans.

"The Big Ten was good, and I thought Tom and I talked before the games, our teams kind of mirrored each other in many ways, the way we defended, how hard we played, the way we try to dominate the backboards, so on and so forth," said Pearl.

"But I felt going in that we were better. I felt like I had better players. That's not a criticism at all. I told our guys right now, we haven't beaten a team yet that I thought was better than us. That's why we're the overall Number 1 seed."

Izzo for his part was impressed both by Pearl's team and the Auburn crowd who showed up in droves in Atlanta.

"I'd say Bruce has done a great job because it's hard to keep a team, as I remember back to those days, from start to finish," said Izzo. "The fans were great today. I mean, I don't think it affected us, and I say that because we played in some of the greatest venues. But they were great. I mean, they were great."

With that off his back, Pearl looks forward to a rematch with the Gators and former mentee, Todd Golden. Golden is now the head coach of the Florida Gators and was Pearl’s Director of Basketball Operations back in 2014 when Pearl took over at Auburn.

With the Tigers now looking at the next game, they remain laser-focused and maintain the one game at a time mentality that is so important in the one and done tournament format.

“Florida has a great team, they were good enough to beat us at home, so we are just going game-by-game,” Tigers’ forward Chaney Johnson said. “It’s another team in the way of getting to the National Championship.”

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