Bruce Pearl doubles down on comment about homecourt advantage after rare home loss

Auburn’s Wednesday night home loss is the exception that proves the rule. The result — a Tigers defeat at the hands of an unranked Texas A&M squad — is extremely rare in Neville Arena since Bruce Pearl took over. Auburn was undefeated at home last year en route to winning the SEC regular season crown and earning a two-seed in the NCAA Tournament and had won their first ten at home this season entering Wednesday’s bout. So they were riding quite the winning streak (28 games) on their home court when a hot Aggies squad came in on Wednesday and knocked them off.

The game wasn’t particularly close, either. It was a thorough pounding from an unranked road team of a ranked home team. In SEC play, that’s like spotting a black-eyed leap frog — it just doesn’t happen very often. Which is a testament to the raucous environments the Southeastern Conference schools create.

Before last night’s loss, Pearl waxed poetically about the historic nature of Auburn’s home winning streak and how the fans and atmosphere make it such a challenging place for opponents to play. However, he notes, the players still have to the plays.

“Making history for a number of years is impactful. It’s what you’re trying to do for the program and university. It speaks to The Jungle, the support, the sellouts, the Auburn family’s commitment, and the great environment,” Pearl said. “But that environment isn’t going to rebound for us, make shots. We’re going to have to continue to play better. We’ve put ourselves in position to compete at the highest level.”

After a huge letdown loss in Neville, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl used the opportunity to further emphasize that no matter how crazy and energetic the crowd is, his team has to play tough and disciplined basketball to come away with SEC wins. At the end of the day, the Tigers failed to make shots and were out-played, which leads to losses, even at home.

“We did a decent job of keeping them off the boards, but they made so many shots that there weren’t that many misses. We did not turn them over enough, and we definitely didn’t make enough shots,” Pearl said Wednesday evening. “We really hadn’t thought about that. We have not lost at home in a couple years. Obviously, not used to it. Lost to a good team that played really well. They were better tonight — it was pretty clear.”

A&M was the better team on this specific night. Bruce Pearl knows no amount crowd support was going to overcome such a poor performance from his players against a great outing from the visitors.