Bruce Pearl shocked the college basketball world when he announced his retirement as Auburn head coach in September, appointing his son Steven as his successor as he sought opportunities off the court.
The younger Pearl will look to start his tenure 2-0 against visiting Merrimack on Thursday, though he surely hopes to get his second win in far prettier fashion than his first.
If No. 20 Auburn’s season opener was any indication, the program is very much in flux after the elder Pearl’s sudden preseason departure. Southwestern Athletic Conference foe Bethune-Cookman gave the Tigers all they could handle, forcing overtime before falling just short in a 95-90 outcome in favor of the reigning SEC regular-season champions.
If there were any positives to take from such a cardiac-inducing outcome, perhaps it’s the fact that Pearl got to test his mettle in a high-pressure overtime situation right off the bat.
“As soon as we sat down (between regulation and overtime), they all looked at me,” Pearl said. “And I just smiled at them. I was just like, ‘This is awesome. We get to play free basketball. We get to play five more minutes of Auburn basketball.’ And that was the only five minutes of the game we played Auburn basketball.”
Auburn forward Keyshawn Hall, who’s in his fourth program in four seasons, led the team with 28 points on 5-of-11 from the field and a whopping 16-of-18 from the free-throw line. Potential first-round draft prospect and last year’s sixth man Tahaad Pettiford started and scored 11 points, but struggled with a 4-of-13 shooting clip from the field overall.
Hall and Pettiford shared the team-high with 38 minutes played, although ideally Pearl would have liked to use his stars less against the lower-tier opponent. If Auburn can gain control early against Merrimack on Thursday, expect to see Hall and Pettiford clock out early. Same with Kevin Overton, who played 34 minutes Monday.
“Keyshawn Hall, (Kevin Overton), Tahaad (Pettiford) played way too many minutes,” Pearl said. “We’ve got to be able to lean on our bench a little bit more. Obviously, in a close game like that, one that you have to win, we relied on our starters. We rolled with those guys. Ultimately, they made plays late, but we’ve got to be able to find ways to play more guys more minutes.”
Merrimack, which competes in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, tipped off its seventh season of Division I basketball with a 75-66 loss to South Dakota State on Monday. While there are hardly any silver linings in an opening-day loss, the game did present an important litmus test for the program against one of the more successful mid-major outfits in the country.
The Warriors got double-digit points from four of their five starters, led by sophomore Tye Dorset with 19 points on an efficient 7-of-12 from the field. The rest of the starting lineup was inefficient in its scoring, however, and starting forward Todd Brogna was just plain inefficient by going scoreless on 0-of-8 shooting overall (all from beyond the arc.)
