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AUBURN — The 2024-25 Auburn basketball season was unknowingly Bruce Pearl’s last as its head coach.
Pearl, 65, is reportedly retiring from the role he has held the past 11 seasons, according to ESPN’s Jeff Borzello. His son, Steven Pearl, who was the Tigers’ associate head coach and defensive coordinator last year, will take over as interim head coach, Borzello said.
It comes on the heels of the Tigers’ best season since 2019, when they went to their first Final Four ever under the elder Pearl. The 2024-25 campaign saw Auburn win at least 30 games for just the second time in the Pearl era. That coincided with its fifth SEC championship under Pearl, as well as its first-ever designation as the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.
BREAKING: Bruce Pearl is expected to retire as the head coach at Auburn, sources tell me and @PeteThamel. His son, Steven, is expected to be the head coach for the upcoming season. pic.twitter.com/gmCAUUQgCD
— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) September 22, 2025
As the top team in the field of 64, Auburn beat Alabama State, Creighton, Michigan State and Michigan in that order to get to San Antonio, where it lost 79-73 to eventual national champion Florida.
While freshly over, Pearl’s 11-season stint on the Plains was undoubtedly the high point of the program’s 119-year history. Pearl’s exit comes after overtaking Joel Eaves as Auburn’s winningest men’s basketball coach of all time en route to the 2025 Final Four, which came after beating Texas 87-82 on Saturday, Jan. 7.
“I will celebrate whatever we accomplish this year this summer,” Pearl said of the feat on Wednesday, Jan. 4, after tying Eaves’ win total. “I’ll celebrate with my friends, my family, the Auburn Family, on the boat at Lake Martin; out there on a golf course. Nobody will enjoy it more, but you know me. You have to know I’m on to Texas and on to the next one.”
Pearl leaves Auburn with a 244-123 record on the Plains, and his final record after three-plus decades as a college basketball head coach sits at 706-268. Pearl’s 706 victories were the 10th-most among active Division I head coaches at the time of his retirement, trailing the likes of Arkansas’ John Calipari, Kansas’ Bill Self, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and several others.
However sudden Pearl’s retirement seemed, it wasn’t unprecedented. He told CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein earlier this month that he didn’t plan to coach “that much longer.”
“I think it’s kind of a balance of life, of time, of work,” Pearl said on Thursday, Sept. 4, in an appearance on Rothstein’s podcast. “I love Auburn, I truly do. Auburn’s been unbelievable for us and our family. Part of the thing is, I also want to do it when I’m on top of my game. Coaches, we want to be on top of our game, because we owe that to our players and our fans. As you get a little bit older, you kind of take it one day at a time.”
Those comments followed a rather abnormal offseason for Auburn’s head coach, whose public appearances largely pertained to politics. He was floated as a potential candidate to run for a vacant U.S. Senate seat in the state of Alabama following former Auburn football coach and current U.S. senator Tommy Tuberville announcing a 2026 campaign for Alabama governor.
Jewish Insider reported this month that Pearl was leaning against a senate run, though he’d yet to refute it happening at the time of his retirement. He has been asked about the topic several times in recent months. During an appearance on Fox News in June, Pearl gave an indirect answer when asked about campaigning.
“I love my country, but I love being the basketball coach at Auburn. As we’re speaking right now, I’m in Atlanta recruiting players,” he said, before taking a minute-plus to express his concerns about the Democratic Party “moving so far over to the left on so many issues,” and his gratitude for President Donald Trump’s “leadership in the Middle East … to join Israel to make sure that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
Auburn athletic director John Cohen confirmed to the Montgomery Advertiser in July that his expectation was Pearl’s return for the upcoming season, though he acknowledged generally that the circumstance could change.
The Tigers are a little more than a month away from the 2025-26 season’s start, which kicks off against Bethune-Cookman on Monday, Nov. 3.
Adam Cole is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at ac***@*****tt.com or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @colereporter.To support Adam’s work, please subscribe to the Montgomery Advertiser.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl expected to retire | Report
