Bruce Pearl explains what has made for right combination at Auburn this season

Hired by the Auburn Tigers in 2014, marking his first head-coaching job since receiving a three-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA for violations committed at Tennessee, Bruce Pearl says he finally has the perfect combination for success this year.

Pearl has led Auburn to success before, but this year is a bit different. He has amassed a 163-95 record in nearly eight full seasons at the helm. In the 2017-18 season, he helped Auburn win the SEC regular-season crown; one year later, Pearl’s Auburn Tigers went 30-10 en route to an SEC Tournament championship and NCAA Final Four appearance. But this year, the expectations for Auburn are higher than ever before, in part because Pearl, 61, has constructed the perfect Tigers roster. F

ittingly, Auburn (24-3, 13-2) sits at No. 3 in the country and No. 1 in the SEC, just weeks after the Tigers received a No. 1 nod in the AP Poll for the first time in program history.

In a recent appearance on ESPN’s Jalen and Jacoby, Pearl explained why this Auburn team is built for success.

“With the transfer portal, we were able to bring four guys to play college basketball last year,” Pearl said. “A couple of them were mid-major guys that wanted to provide to everybody that they were better than what they were thought to be. One of them was Wendell Green Jr. from Detroit. And another one is Zep Jasper from the College of Charleston.”

Of course, any college basketball fan knows of Auburn’s transfer success. But perhaps no player has shown up in a bigger way — playing consistently at such a high level — than Walker Kessler. Kessler was a former five-star center according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies but committed to UNC out of high school. In one season with the Tar Heels, Kessler averaged just 4.4 points per game, along with 3.2 rebounds, 0.3 assists and 0.9 blocks in 8.8 minutes per game.

At Auburn, however, the story couldn’t be more different. Kessler may only be averaging 25.4 minutes per contest, but he’s managed to put up a remarkable stat line, averaging 12.0 points, 4.7 blocks, 1.0 steals and 8.3 rebounds per game. Pearl understands Kessler’s impact, one of two high-major transfers to revitalize their career at Auburn.

“Then, we had a couple high-major guys in KD Johnson from Georgia and Walker Kessler from North Carolina,” Pearl said. “They want to come home and feel like they can win championships, and all four of those guys have done great, along with the best freshman in the country in Jabari Smith.“

Like Kessler, Smith was also a five-star recruit, per the On3 Consensus, and the near-seven-foot forward has looked every bit as talented as his rating suggests. Smith, a likely top-five pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, is averaging 16.2 points per contest, while shooting nearly 40 percent from deep, and has added 6.8 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.0 blocks and 1.2 steals per contest.

“You put that together with a solid returning cast,” Pearl quipped, “and they have somehow been able to overcome their coach.”