Bruce Pearl reacts to having Louisville as eight-seed in potential matchup for Round of 32

Louisville was one of the bigger seeding storylines with where they were slotted as a No. 8 on Selection Sunday. That makes it as much of an issue for the Cardinals as it does for the one-seed in their bracket in the Tigers, the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Following the release of the field, Bruce Pearl spoke to the media and, with that, looked ahead just a bit to a potential matchup with No. 8 Louisville for No. 1 Auburn in the Round of 32. In doing so, he gave their team a lot of credit for the revival they had within the program in year one under Pat Kelsey.

“In the next round, if we’re able to advance to the second game because, obviously, right now, there are five teams vying to advance – the two teams I already mentioned and then, of course, Creighton and Louisville,” said Pearl. “Pat Kelsey is the coach at Louisville. He may win a National Coach of the Year award. Louisville finished at the bottom a year ago, picked to finish near the bottom this year and what an incredible turnaround. Pat Kelsey – one of the best young coaches in our game.”

Louisville finished 27-7 overall as one of the top teams in the ACC. The Cardinals are winners of 21 of their last 23, including a loss to Duke this past weekend in the ACC Championship. Because of that, the expectation was that they’d be much higher in the top half of the seeding for the field. Instead, they finished as the highest of the No. 8 seeds at No. 29 overall.

“Most of the stuff that we’d seen had them at the six or seven-line and, um, so, somehow they got bumped down to eight,” said Pearl. “You know, we’ve got to play great teams, um, no matter where we have to play them.”

Again, that’s as much of a complaint for Auburn as it could be for Louisville. The Cardinals have to feel they deserved a higher seed to avoid the better matchups they’ll have in the first two games. The Tigers could make the same case about them with the Cards, especially since their regional will allow for what’ll seem closer to a home-court advanage for them in Lexington.

It reminded Pearl of a similar spot that Auburn was in as a No. 9 seed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament. They lost to No. 2 Houston by 19 but played that game in a much closer location for their fans at Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama.

“A couple years ago, Houston had to play us when we were an eight or nine-seed in Birmingham,” said Pearl. “Now, Birmingham was a couple of hours away, obviously, um, but Auburn travels.”

Similarly, Pearl has no doubt that the Tigers will travel again for these games up in the bluegrass. Louisville might have the most distinct advantage of the three but he expects Auburn and Creighton will have fans there too when they all tip off from Rupp Arena.

“We’re going to travel. And so we’re going to have a lot of people up, up in Lexington,” said Pearl. “If Louisville advances, they’ll have a lot of people there. If Creighton advances, they’re going to have a great crowd there. So, I’m not going to, I’m not going to get into that too much.”