Auburn basketball set for preseason foreign tour to Israel
AUBURN – The Auburn men’s basketball team will take a preseason foreign tour to Israel from July 31 to Aug. 10.
The Tigers will play three games over the course of 10 days in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They will face the Israeli U-20 National Team twice on Aug. 2 and 6 as well as the Israeli Senior National Team on Aug. 8.
“Every four years, you can take a foreign trip with your team,” Pearl said. “These foreign trips have been one of the greatest teaching moments I have been a part of in 40 years of coaching college basketball. Israel has not been your typical destination for college basketball teams. Yet, Israel, is one of the top 2-3 countries in the world in its quality of competition and support for professional basketball.
“Aside from basketball, this is an educational experience for our players. We are going to take them to where Jesus was born in Bethlehem and visit the City of David in Jerusalem. From a historical and religious standpoint, this is going to be one of the greatest trips in our student-athletes’ lives. I am grateful to Auburn for its continued support of our foreign trips over the years and helping with our ministry.”
The NCAA allows teams to make an international trip once every four years. The Tigers previously traveled to Italy in the summer of 2017.
Bruce Pearl talks new Auburn deal and more
Pearl’s new pay change took effect on May 1. His new contract will pay him $5.4 million annually with a $250,000 escalator. The numbers for Pearl’s staff haven’t been released, but his entire full-time coaching staff received significant raises as well. Steven Pearl, Wes Flanigan, Ira Bowman, Chad Prewett, Mike Burgomaster, Ian Borders, Marquis Daniels, strength coach Damon Davis, all of them.
Pearl’s unprecedented success was certainly part of the reason for the extension. The timing, however, was largely due to behind-the-scenes interest from at the time, Maryland and Louisville. Without that agreed upon extension, the list of suitors would have only grown.
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Days after earning the No. 1 ranking, Bruce Pearl sat down with athletic director Allen Greene’s and started a simple conversation. Pearl didn’t want to leave Auburn, was in the middle of a historic basketball season at Auburn, but was receiving serious interest from other programs. Pearl made it simple.
“I went to Auburn and said, ‘I don’t want to go. I want to stay here and finish my career here. Look, I want to be loyal, but I want you to be loyal to me. Let’s do this,” Pearl told Auburn Live.
Within a matter of days, the deal was done.
The interesting part of the story is how Pearl handled his contract negotiation, and frankly, how he’s handled contract negotiations his entire career.
There were no sports agents involved in Pearl’s most recent contract extension with Auburn. There weren’t agents involved when Pearl first signed with Auburn in 2014, or when he accepted the job at Tennessee in 2005, or when he accepted his first Division I coaching job at Milwaukee in 2001, or even when he landed at Southern Indiana to start his head coaching career in 1992.
For Bruce Pearl, it’s all about personal, long-lasting relationships.
“I’ve always negotiated my coaching contract,” Pearl said. “I think the reason I’ve never had an agent speak for me regarding my contract is because of my personal relationship with every man that hired me.”
