Regarding the whole Bruce Pearl/Nate Oats comparison

But auburn is a basketball school

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Bruce needs to win 67 games the next two seasons to match Wimp's overall win total thru 12 seasons.

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Wimp didn’t have to build a program from scratch following CM Newton like Bruce did following Tony Barbee salting the earth. Bruce gets a pass for his for first seasons because he had literally build the program from scratch. Wimp took over a winning program.

Oats inherited a roster of 4 and 5 stars. He inherited the likes of Herb Jones, Shackleford and so on. He is also Nike and the state school.

He had it extremely easy if compared to Pearl.

Nice thread OP.

Can you compare Marc Richt at Georgia to James Franklin at Vandy next?

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If being a early tournament exit, but still SEC championship winner is the worst Bruce has to offer then I'll take it

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So just for clarity — other than Bruce's Final Four season, you're fine with him winning three NCAAT games total in an entire decade, and continuing to lose in the First Round, as long as he occasionally wins the end-of-season SEC Tournament in Nashville like his team did this year?

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you're fine with him winning three NCAAT games total in an entire decade, and continuing to lose in the First Round, as long as he occasionally wins the end-of-season SEC Tournament in Nashville like his team did this year?

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Yep. Auburn didn’t sniff the tournament when I was a student. What he’s done is nothing short of amazing.

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winning three NCAAT games total in an entire decade

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Losing a tournament game comes down to matchup sometimes.

Sometimes officials can make a call that really determines the outcome.

Sometimes the team lays an egg.

A tourney run often needs some luck as well. Good play can help, and sometimes you draw good matchups.

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And I love how we've now moved the goalposts on these conversations from "We're a basketball school, Bruce is the best coach in the SEC" to "You should've seen how bad we were, Bruce just did what he could."

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And anybody can just make shite up.

Long time lurker, first time poster and finally decided become a user on here. I had to comment on this because even though I am an Auburn and USC grad (the real USC in LA), I played some basketball and love talking about basketball in general. The OP seems very misguided and lacks history of the two programs. Your coach inherited a team full of NBA and elite college talent, Johnson just couldn’t adapt to the college game, like other failed NBA players and coaches who have tried to cut in the college game. Your coach came in with so many advantages and didn’t really have to build much. He has an offense that is guard oriented and is similar to the NBA game. He also is at Nike school and is the state school. Those two are huge advantages, especially the Nike school. If you know anything about the AAU circuit, those coaches literally tell most of their players where to go to what college they’re affiliated with, such as Nike.

Also, congratulations on your run, but not all runs are equal. You played 2 12 seeds, the weakest 1 seed, and a 5 seed. Not exactly the toughest road. As someone else said, the tourney is really just the luck of the draw.

Now I will admit that Bruce has underwhelmed in the tournament with Jabari and this year’s team. I would be lying if I said I was not jealous of your team going further than us. However, you and most other UAT fans love to minimize the overall job he has done. Auburn was literally the worst power 5 conference team when Bruce took over. What he has done is beyond miraculous. If you want to slam a coach, at least look at facts first before you make these outlandish posts.