Bruce Pearl: 'Kentucky is still the gold standard in our league. They always will be.'

While the tides have very slowly shifted over the last few years, Kentucky men’s basketball is still the premier program in the Southeastern Conference. That’s not really up for debate just yet. It’s going to take more than a handful of “down” years for that narrative to flip any time soon.

“Kentucky is still the gold standard in our league. They always will be. That’s never going to change,” Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said on Friday. “If you want to be relevant in the world of college basketball, if you want to be relevant in the SEC, you gotta beat Kentucky every now and then. We were able to do it my second year, which obviously gave us some wind in our sails, a little bit of hope that we could get this thing going.”

Kentucky has been crowned the SEC regular season champion 48 times throughout history. The Wildcats have 32 SEC Tournament championships, too. No other school comes close to those numbers. But it’s admittedly been a while for the Big Blue Nation. Kentucky hasn’t won the SEC regular season or the SEC Tournament since 2020 and 2018, respectively. That might as well feel like decades for the fan base.

Thanks to coaches like Pearl, UK hasn’t been as successful within the SEC over the last few years. Rick Barnes (Tennessee), Nate Oats (Alabama), and Eric Musselman (Arkansas) have made life difficult for John Calipari, too. Since 1921, Kentucky holds a 97-23 overall record against Auburn, but over the last 12 meetings, that mark is an even 6-6. The Tigers enter Saturday night’s matchup against UK as a hefty home favorite. Pearl and company consistently give Kentucky fits. This is mostly unfamiliar territory for the program.

Has the competition in the SEC simply gotten better over the last decade or so? That’s certainly part of it. Opposing teams just aren’t as afraid of Kentucky as they once had been. But that doesn’t mean UK isn’t still the program with the biggest target on its back. Auburn fans have been camping out for Saturday’s game since Wednesday night. College Gameday is hosting a Kentucky road game for the second time this season. UK continues to move the needle.

When the ‘Cats come to town, it’s still the biggest show around. It’s going to take more than a few years of failing to make the Sweet 16 for that to become untrue. Kentucky remains the gold standard, even if the shine is beginning to wear off a bit.

No one wants to play Kentucky in March

Bruce Pearl didn’t stop there with his praise for Kentucky during his pregame press conference. He believes the same thing about UK that John Calipari does: this team is built for March.

“Kentucky is absolutely not a team that anybody wants to see in postseason play,” Pearl said. “Because they’re so dangerous.”

The Big Blue Nation would prefer to see it happen instead of just being said out loud, but this Kentucky team does check some necessary boxes to make a deep postseason run. The ‘Cats have incredibly talented guards, a high-powered offense, and don’t turn the ball over. If the defense can just get a smidge better (10 percent better, as Calipari has said ad nauseam), dreams of playing in April aren’t all that crazy.

Beating No. 13 Auburn first would be a good step to making that a reality. The Tigers have yet to lose at home this season, but Pearl isn’t taking Kentucky lightly by any means.

“Kentucky is really good,” Pearl added. “They’re one of the best offensive teams in the country. They have five guys averaging double-digits scoring, four guards. They’re a really tough cover. They’ve got four or five guys that are in mock drafts for next year. They are like third or fourth in the nation in blocked shots, they’ve got great length, they do a great job of protecting the rim. We struggled against Florida’s length and we’re gonna have to find a way to not allow Kentucky’s length to have the same impact on us that Florida’s length did.”

If Kentucky wants to keep its status as the gold standard, beating this Auburn team will go a long way in helping make that happen. Tipoff is set for 6:00 p.m. EST on ESPN.