Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl Previews Matchup Against Indiana

Heading into Saturday's game against Indiana, here's what Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said about the Hoosiers, as well as a few memories Pearl has of Bob Knight while he was coaching Southern Indiana.

Auburn coach Bruce held a press conference Thursday to preview Saturday's matchup against Indiana at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Ga.

The Tigers are coming off a 69-64 loss at Appalachian State on Sunday, but they'll have almost a full week to prepare for Indiana. The Hoosiers are off to a 2-0 start in Big Ten play, recently defeating Maryland at home and winning at Michigan on Tuesday.

Pearl shared his thoughts on the Hoosiers, as well as a few memories from his time coaching Southern Indiana from 1992-2001, when he used to listen to Bob Knight's radio shows.

On Saturday's game against Indiana...

Pearl: “Indiana obviously is a blue blood. It’s a historic program out of the Big Ten, and what an opportunity for us to be able to play one of the blue bloods in college basketball. I say that will all due respect. I coached nine years at Southern Indiana, and I was there when coach Knight was there, so one of the things I was doing as a young coach was watching coach Knight. I was listening to his radio show and always was so impressed with how he was communicating with fans. He absolutely taught the game to the fanbase, and he actually had more respect for the fans than he did the media. He would give the media such a hard time and barely answer their questions and some random caller from Fishers, Indiana, or wherever, he’d go and answer that question and break it down and I learned a lot by listening to him and watching him. This is going to be a very physical game on Saturday. Indiana, obviously coming out of the Big Ten, has two dominating post players. A 7-footer, Kel’el Ware, who was a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Watch List member, averaging 17 and shoots 64% from the floor. And then Reneau is a very similar player to Johni Broome, just a little bit quicker, a little bit faster, not quite as big, but also left-handed. So those two guys – Indiana’s got the best front line in the Big Ten. And we’d like to think we’ve got one of the best front lines in the SEC, and so it’s going to be a great matchup from that standpoint. Indiana will probably be, they are – Baylor will probably be the best team we’ve seen so far, and Indiana will clearly be the second-best team we’ve seen so far.”

On defending an Indiana that doesn't shoot many threes...

Pearl: “They are, and those guys, a lot of your defensive schemes are going to be how to defend the post and how to keep it out of there if you can or to get it in there, what do you do when they get it in there? So a lot of what we’re doing now is going to be dealing with that, so that should challenge all the way from your on-ball stuff to your off-ball stuff and being able to make adjustments to playing a dominating front line, a dominating post team. We may not play another team like that all year long.”

On listening to Bob Knight's radio shows when he coached Southern Indiana...

Pearl: “I think perhaps just a recognition that – let’s just take Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, those three states, Tobacco Road and Indiana and Kentucky right in there – their fans know the game. They knew the game because when they were in high school, they played the game. There’s a basketball rim or a backboard on every light pole in the state, in everybody’s backyard. And as a result, the high school coaching is outstanding. The youth coaching is outstanding. The players are high IQ. And so I think the biggest thing I learned is that – now, they don’t know nothing about football, whereas our fanbase, they’ve forgotten more than some of our coaches know in football. But we pride ourselves on that in the SEC, it just means more. We’re a dominating football conference. So that’s just the biggest takeaway. They build high school gyms in Indiana that hold 6-7,000 and fill them on Friday nights. It’s like Texas high school football or Alabama high school football. It’s the same thing, you know. We’re kind of an everything school, which is awesome. They’re a men’s college basketball school. Pretty good soccer too.”

On staying out of foul trouble against Indiana...

Pearl: "Well, I’ve got 10 fouls to use, so that’s 10 out of 22. They do, they dump it in there. Reneau in particular, he just forces you to foul. He’s big, strong, physical, athletic, bouncy, and he’s a terror in there. So it’s going to be a challenging game for the officials to referee the post. But you’ve also got to guard Johni, you’ve got to guard Dylan [Cardwell], you’ve got to guard our guys, too. But they do, they go to the line a lot and they draw a lot of fouls.”

Here's the full video of Pearl's press conference. 

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