Alabama Rival Basketball Head Coach Retiring Ahead of Season

Auburn men's basketball head coach Bruce Pearl is expected to retire before this season, per ESPN's Jeff Borzello. Steven Pearl, his son, is will take over ahead of 2025-26.

Bruce Pearl had been rumored to pursue a career in politics once his days as a basketball coach ended.

"It's certainly something that I had considered," Pearl told reporters, Borzello and Pete Thamel wrote. "It's something I thought a great deal about, but obviously I'm here today and I'm in practice and I've got practice tomorrow."

The news of Pearl's retirement now makes Alabama head coach Nate Oats, who came to Tuscaloosa in 2019, the second-longest tenured SEC basketball coach with a single school. He's only behind Tennessee's Rick Barnes (2015) and no other SEC head coach has been with his respective team longer than 2021.

Pearl and Alabama have had quite the history since he was hired more than 11 years ago. Pearl was 11-12 against the Crimson Tide. Oats has a 7-5 edge on the 65-year-old. Perhaps their most anticipated matchup was this year's first edition of the Iron Bowl of Basketball.

All of the college basketball world was watching No. 1 Auburn face No. 2 Alabama on Saturday, Feb. 15. Imagine reading that sentence just a couple of years ago.

The Crimson Tide fell 94-85 at home, but Pearl's first words of his opening statement in the postgame press conference didn't have to do with his team's performance.

“I think the thing I’m proudest of is that all eyes of college basketball were on the state of Alabama and the SEC," Pearl said. What this conference has done in men’s basketball is historic. And, you know, you never know whether or not a game can live up to the hype.

"I’m happy because we have such balance. I’m happy for the kids from Alabama. This rivalry matters in the state, in every family. Every family’s divided. Every family’s got Auburn fans, and they’ve got Alabama fans."

This was the 44th all-time meeting in the entire sport between teams ranked No. 1 and No. 2. It was also the first time that this extremely rare event occurred in the SEC.

Alabama won the final regular season game of Pearl's career via a buzzer-beating floater by All-American guard Mark Sears in Neville Arena.

Regardless of the results between the two programs last season, Pearl and Oats have turned what was mostly known as a football rivalry into a must-see battle on the hardwood.

"There’s been more championships won, the last two Final Fours in the SEC have been Auburn and Alabama, and this year we’re 1 and 2," Oats said before the first matchup with Auburn last season. "So the Iron Bowl of basketball, if you will, — I don’t know it’s appropriate to call it that. The in-state rivalry in the state of Alabama whatever you want to call it — has increasingly become a national level game, and it’s all the way at the top now to where it’s 1 versus 2."