LOOK: Auburn honors Joe B. Hall at team hotel

Ahead of No. 2 Auburn’s battle against No. 12 Kentucky at home, the Tigers went out of their way to honor the legendary Kentucky head coach Joe B. Hall at the team hotel.

Very nice touch by Auburn at ⁦@KentuckyMBB⁩ team hotel tonight. on video board where announcements posted pic.twitter.com/IRMYsS9HAa

— Darrell Bird (@DarrellBird) January 22, 2022

Hall, 93, passed away on Jan. 15. Ever since, the entirety of college basketball have continued to honor him throughout the country.

A former UK player-turned assistant who dared to follow legendary head coach Adolph Rupp on UK’s sideline, Hall coached the Wildcats from 1972 through 1985, becoming a legend in his own right within the program’s storied history. In 13 seasons he guided three different teams to the Final Four, and in 1978 his Wildcats won the NCAA Championship for only the fifth time in school history, the first without Rupp.

Kentucky honored Hall by using his patented 1-3-1 defensive scheme in their opening defensive possession in their 107-79 victory over Tennessee last Saturday. They also lit up Hall’s jersey for the entirety of the game in the rafters of Rupp Arena.

Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl also detailed how coach Hall impacted his coaching career earlier in the week as well:

“I’m gonna tell you right now, I use this slide in a lot of my clinics, and a lot of my actual speaking engagements, and it came from Joe B. Hall,” Pearl said. “Joe B. Hall said, it’s not my job—speaking of himself—to make every right decision, but it is my players job to make my decisions work.”

The great thing about that advice, Pearl said, is that it can be applied to the basketball court and more importantly, in real life as well. He used his speeches to business managers as an example:

“But whether it’s the right decision, the best decision, or the fourth best decision, your company, your team, your employees, your players need to make that decision work and that’s how I coach as well,” Pearl would tell the managers.

Pearl said Hall gave him this advice when he won the Adolph Rupp National Coach of the Year award while he was still coaching at Tennessee. He said Hall took him aside, talked to him about his team’s play, his coaching style and gave him that advice and it changed the way he coached forever. 

That decision making that coach Hall implemented into Pearl’s coaching philosophy seems to be working for the best. His Auburn team is currently ranked No. 2 in Monday’s AP Top 25 and currently sit at 16-1 with a 13-game winning streak. The lone loss came against then-No. 22 UConn 115-109 in double overtime back in November.

In a way, Pearl sees his ability to build the Auburn program from the ground up in a similar light as how coach Hall kept the torch going immediately after Adolph Rupp retired—it was an “impossible task.”

“[Coach Hall] did it with class, he did it his own way,” Pearl said. ” He did it Kentucky’s way. He loved Kentucky and Kentucky loved him. He never quite got the credit that he deserved.”

Kentucky and Auburn will tip off at 1 p.m. ET live on CBS. Coach Hall will likely be honored in some form or fashion during the broadcast.