Bruce Pearl praises what Todd Golden has accomplished at Florida, compares him to Billy Donovan

Ahead of Auburn’s SEC Tournament title bout with Florida, ESPN’s Marty Smith caught up with head coach Bruce Pearl to discuss the matchup against an old underling of his in Todd Golden.

Golden’s Gators already won three games in three days to get to the SEC final, where he’ll get a chance to hand his old boss a second loss this season. Florida pounded Auburn at home back in February, but the Tigers are expecting a different outcome on a neutral court.

Pearl said the team is all-in on winning out the rest of the season.

“I mean, we’ve been talking about trying to not lose again. That’s been our focus here in March, because I know, to the victor goes the spoils,” he told Smith. In particular, though, this SEC Tournament run is something Pearl understands as meaningful to the fans and program.

“I also know what it’s like for a community, our Auburn family, to travel to Nashville. You don’t want to lose the first game. Parents gotta go home, the band’s gotta go home, cheerleaders gotta go home. You want them to be able to stay in Nashville for a weekend and play for a championship. I’m confident were going to have a bunch of Auburn people driving up the highway from Alabama to cheer on the Tigers today.”

For him personally, the matchup with Golden is personal since the second-year Florida head coach was once an assistant on Pearl’s first couple staffs when he took over the Auburn job nearly a decade ago. Plus, Golden played under Pearl at the 2009 Maccabiah Games during his time in the Israeli Basketball Premier League.

Now that Todd Golden himself is a rising SEC coaching star, Bruce Pearl is thrilled for him but still wants badly to beat him today.

“Well, he’s brought life back into the program, you know, kind of reminds me of the Billy Donovan days. I do not want to be a gracious loser this afternoon. But I’m very proud of Todd, happy for him and his family.”

Before signing off, Pearl gave a quick breakdown of Florida noting the exact strengths which UF used to win big in their regular season meeting.

“They got a great team. Their guards are big and they’re really good, their front line is enormous. They beat us pretty good the first time, so we’re going to have to play a lot better defensively and execute better offensively to get this one.

“We got to hang in on the boards. They’re one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the league, their guards can score at all three levels, and we just got to make sure we’re sharing the ball and bring the effort level we did the first two days. Guarded hard against South Carolina and Mississippi State, if we can guard again we can beat ’em.”