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NCAA MEN'S 1ST AND 2ND ROUNDS: SAN DIEGO

March 15, 2018

Bruce Pearl

San Diego, California

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Auburn coach, Bruce Pearl.

BRUCE PEARL: It's great to be back to play for a National Championship. I was reminiscing with friends and family and counted up the fact that this is my 25th time as a manager or a student assistant or assistant coach and or head coach. It's been a lot of fun getting to play in March. For my children the NCAA Tournament was spring break. When I got out of coaching for a while, they kind of missed that, being on the road to the Final Four and that one shining moment.

I am beyond thrilled that Auburn was able to win a Championship in men's basketball in the SEC. It's only happened three times, and it happened in a year when the league was about as good as it's been in a long, long time.

I think our team was a team that in spite of some challenges came to play every night because we just weren't able to show up and win. We knew we were up against it. That is hard for really talented, deep teams to do in January and February. So we were able to sneak up, because we came to play every night. Now that you get to March, and we're not sneaking up on anybody, but everybody is playing hard and fully engaged. The reason I say this is because I've been on talented teams. I won a National Championship, Division II in Indiana.

We finished third in our league. We may have been one of those teams that may not have been excited to play in January and February. But by the time we got to the tournament and said we only need to win six games and we knew we were talented enough to do it. The cream does tend to rise to the top.

So for us, we gotta find a way to play better than we have the last six games of the season without Anfernee McLemore. One thing that ailed us is we haven't had many contact practices. We had a couple this week and survived them and I'm hoping that gives us an edge of trying to guard Charleston and do things we need to be able to do to advance.

Q. It's kind of a match-up between really elite guards. Talk about Riller and Chealey and what you have seen on them on film and what they present?
BRUCE PEARL: They're handfuls. The match-up of Jared Harper and Bryce Brown and Riller and Chealey, that's a key match-up for the outcome of the game. Chealey gets to the foul line 7.5 times a game. He's crafty. He's creative. He's smart. He sells fouls to the officials really well, whether it's driving downhill, taking advantage of angles, or kicking his leg out from three and creating some contact and getting the official to call. Three-point fouls. He's smart. He can go either way. He can score at the rim. You gotta guard him from three. You can't close out short on him. He's got size. He's a really good player and he can defend. Riller is an elite scorer, terrific athlete, gets downhill, finishes at the rim, doesn't need much time to get that thing off. Those guys are tough covers. They're as tough a cover as we've seen all year long when it comes to match-ups. So Davion Mitchell, Bryce Brown and Jared Harper are the three guards and their ability to contain those guys will go a long way to determining the outcome of the game.

Q. Bruce, you've talked about how are important Jared is to this team's success or lack of it. Could you talk about what it is about him that makes one guy be that special to what you do?
BRUCE PEARL: Well, I think it's just like Chealey would be for College of Charleston, Jared is for us. First of all, he's our quarterback. He's got the ball in his hands every offensive possession, the beginning of it and he's got his hands on it at the end of it, a lot of times. He's our playmaker and he can score.

But his responsibility is to make sure that the other guys on the floor are involved and put into positions to make shots and get them the ball in space and make plays, so on, so forth, and he's probably our best communicator defensively calling out signals and kinda helping set our defense. So Jared has had a great year and there have been a handful of games he hasn't played well and we've lost in those handful of games. He has to play pretty well for us to win.

Q. Bruce, couple weeks ago when you beat Alabama you have career performances from role players without Mustapha out there. Since then, whether it's Davion or Chuma or Malik they are not having those kind of contributions and I understand outliars. How important when you talk about everybody contributing when your own three, when three guys scored in double figures, is it for those guys to pick up their contributions offensively?
BRUCE PEARL: It's crucial, offensively and defensively. We play best when everybody contributes. Obviously, Jared and Mustapha and Bryce are pretty recognized as three of our best players. But truly, you look at how Desean Murray stepped up in the SEC tournament or there have been times when his play as a tough match-up has been significant or Chuma Okeke, he has ability to at times be a major factor in games. He's played a little like a freshman the last week or two, and he has the ability to pick up and be a major factor. Malik Dunbar was a guy that had a lot to learn to be able to contribute at the highest level of Division I college basketball, but he got a lot of physical ability and he's got a great heart and great spirit. When we have won games, big games, road games, things like that, we have gotten great contribution from those guys and the big three didn't have to carry us.

So there is no question if we can get those guys going, not just offensively, but overall, because we're down to eight guys, that's it, there's not a ninth man. The ninth man is Patrick Keim who is a walk-on on scholarship. That's it.

Q. Bruce, you talked about several times in the season how important that Italy trip was to get your team ready for what they ended up doing this year. Now that you are at the NCAA Tournament and you look back, how important was that trip to get you guys here?
BRUCE PEARL: I think one of the greatest rules that the NCAA has is allowing those foreign trips, from a cultural standpoint, from an academic standpoint. There's nothing like it in the world. I've traveled with teams since I started coaching. Oftentimes, almost always the year following it we've had really good seasons. That's not the reason why we do it, but the guys have said that we went to Italy as a team, we came back as a family.

Regardless of the moments that you would say were the most precious moments of your life, winning and advancing in the NCAA Tournament, the birth of a child, whatever it is, it's because you did that with people that you care about. You did it with friends and family or teammates. That's what makes those moments so special. So when you advance in this tournament and it's special, you realize that the only way you got to advance is because your players or your coaches or others carried you there. You played your role. I've got a job to do. Players have a job to do, but without them, without each other, it's not possible.

Q. What does Chuma need to do to get back playing where he was? Offensively he hasn't been on.
BRUCE PEARL: I think it's a confidence factor, Chuma can score multiple ways and kind of relying on him a little bit with just his three ball. He can do more than that. The thing I talk to Chuma about is trusting his instincts. He knows how to play and defend and rotate and take charge. He can do more out there and he is a high-end rebounder.

But for us to win he needs to do more. We talked about losing Anthony, our best rim protector, our best finishers around the basket, someone hack roll or pop. He was a dynamic weapon, but as a result of him playing not more than 20 minutes, Horace is playing more, Desean is playing more and Chuma is playing more. That's not a bad thing, because they all bring things to the table.

The one thing that none of them are bringing is rim protection. That's something that Anthony can do that not many 6-7 guys can do in this country and that's block 'em and change 'em and we clearly miss that. But Chuma is a freshman and having to play center, I didn't recruit him to play center. He was going to play 3 or 4, but because of no Austin Wiley, no Danjel Purifoy and no Anfernee McLemore he has to play 5 for about 20 minutes a game.

Q. What kind of factor can the Championship in high school be to help you get here?
BRUCE PEARL: I love guys that play for Championships. They got it. They know how to win and that's something we can rely on this time of year.

Q. Now that you're here can you talk about two and three years ago how far away it felt or do you know because Jared Harper and Mustapha Heron were coming?
BRUCE PEARL: I thought the way the roster was being built we could get here, but we needed to get here this year. I said at the beginning of the year I thought this was an NCAA Tournament team and I felt like this was the year we were going to make that move. I thought the personnel was there. I needed to make sure I was there, that I was good enough to be able to pull the strings that I needed to do to get us back. Where Auburn belongs.

So I had confidence that this could be a very special year. I wasn't sure we could win the league, but I knew we could get here and I obviously wanted the kids to be able to experience this. We've got to play College of Charleston, New Mexico State and Clemson. One of those four are going to the Sweet 16 and I think all four teams in this bracket think they have a legitimate chance. I don't see anybody in this bracket regardless of being seeded four and Clemson five, head and shoulders above anybody else. It's going to be very competitive.

Q. Beyond Mustapha being a great ball player, as you know he's also an activist off court against gun violence. What do you think about that?
BRUCE PEARL: I think it's great. I think when student-athletes use their platform to be able to try to make a difference, Mustapha has a program at home against gun violence. He's also got a reading program at home for kids to promote reading and he is an activist. He is a social activist and I think he would like to try to do more. He's not afraid to try and right wrongs. He leads by example. He's a hard-working, dedicated, disciplined student-athlete that's positioning himself to do things for himself and he came to Auburn to try to make changes and he has and I think he will continue to do that.

Q. Bruce, with all that your program has gone through this year off and on the court what is it about the make-up of these kids that has not allowed for the most part for that stuff to seep in and allowed them to have the success that they have had?
BRUCE PEARL: I think if you think about 365 days in a year and you think about everything you've got to do all day every day to put yourself in a position to play for a Championship, whether it's academically, weight room, diet, rest, practice, individual workouts, shots at night and then you go through a process with an internal investigation or answering questions from the NCAA, you know, you only do that for a few hours, or whatever. That's it!

Then you move on and go back to focusing on the things that you are at Auburn to do as a student-athlete. It doesn't dominate our process because it doesn't dominate our time. The kids had to go through the process. They went through the process and they're all certified as eligible and we moved on. I feel badly for a couple of guys whose eligibility was denied because of mistakes takes that were made and I feel accountable and responsible and with those guys we'd be even better, but they're out right now and we have to move forward without them and the kids have done a great job of that.

Q. Do you feel like you will come out of this FBI mess personally okay and when do you expect to talk to the Auburn investigators?
BRUCE PEARL: I'm not going to comment specifically about that, but I am confident when everything is said and done, that I will still be coaching at Auburn.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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