Auburn's Steven Pearl Reveals Key Reasons for Hiring Louisville's Brian Kloman as GM

As the Auburn Tigers prepare to take on Illinois State in the NIT on Thursday night, they’ve been busy preparing for the future. Head coach Steven Pearl and his basketball program added the position of General Manager for basketball, and they tapped former Louisville Cardinals staffer Brian Kloman to fill the role.

Kloman has been a key staffer for Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey and has helped the Cardinals to a 51-19 record the last two seasons, after going 8-24 the prior season.

Pearl understands the fluid nature of roster construction in college basketball and wanted Kloman on his side.

“If you look at the landscape of college basketball, it's just a really important piece,” Pearl said of adding a general manager. “One, getting prepared, getting organized, and being ready to attack the portal, in a way that can put you in a position to have an advantage.”

Pearl understands that general manager of basketball is an uncommon position among university programs, but he thinks he’s found the right guy to elevate the Tigers from a mediocre 2025-26 campaign.

“There's not a lot of general managers right now in college basketball. In the handful that there are, he's obviously shown the ability to do it at a very high level. They got to Louisville, when that thing was, let's just call it what it was, it was not in a great place. And, for them to completely revamp and flip that roster and go to back-to-back NCAA tournaments, and be in the top 3 to 5 in the ACC, every year since they've been there is substantial.”

Kloman has been a key part of Kelsey’s success for the past 11 seasons and has worked with him as Kelsey has risen through the coaching ranks.

“He's been with Coach Kelsey all the way from Winthrop to Charleston out of Louisville,” Pearl continued. “For a coach to continue to advance and rise, he obviously has to have a great staff, and BK is one of the guys that was really instrumental in their success.”

Poaching a staff member like Kloman didn’t come out of the blue for Pearl and the Tigers. A previous relationship played a key role in convincing Kloman to join the Auburn program.

“I've known him for a really long time. I've known him since our Tennessee days,” Pearl continued. “Since we got into coaching, [we] have just stayed friends and have really bounced ideas off each other. He's somebody that I've always turned to for advice on certain things in the portal, innovative, creative ideas, you know, he's a guy that's always bringing you something.”

Kloman hasn’t been at Auburn long, but Pearl can already feel his impact as they prepare for Illinois State on Thursday and the inevitable roster changes that will happen shortly thereafter.

“He's gonna really approve the efficiency of the things that we do on our staff and from a recruiting standpoint,” Pearl said. “Just in the couple of days that he's already been here has just provided tremendous value in what we're trying to do.

“So, he's a huge value add for our staff. and [we’re] really happy that he's here on The Plains.”

Auburn takes on Illinois State at Hinkle Field House in Indianapolis, Ind., on Thursday night at 8:30 p.m. CT. The game will be televised on ESPN.

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