College basketball has been hit with a huge coaching retirement decision for a second straight preseason. Auburn’s Bruce Pearl is leaving the profession, sources told CBS Sports on Monday. The news comes less than a year after Virginia’s Tony Bennett shockingly stepped away in October 2024.
After an offseason of considering whether or not to retire, Pearl came to terms with his decision and made it final on Monday morning, sources said. He’s been linked to a potential Senate run in Alabama in recent months as well, but sources had been downplaying the likelihood that Pearl would go into politics this year.
The 65-year-old Pearl has been a head coach dating back to 1992, when he first got a chance running a program at Division II Southern Indiana where, in 1995, he won a Division II national championship. Pearl then coached at Milwaukee from 2001-05, at Tennessee from 2005-11 and, since 2014, has guided Auburn under its greatest run in school history. Pearl leaves on a high note, having taken the Tigers to the Final Four with a No. 1 seed last season. He also took Auburn to its first Final Four in 2019.
Pearl’s path to Auburn was clouded in controversy. He received a three-year show-cause penalty in 2011 as his unprecedented run of success at Tennessee came to an end after an investigation found he lied to NCAA investigators about the program’s impermissible contact with prospects. It was the second time Pearl was wrapped up in an NCAA investigation, along with the Deon Thomas recruiting scandal in the late 1980s.
At the time, Auburn was mired in apathy. The program had posted just one winning record in SEC play from 2001-17. After sitting on the sidelines due to NCAA punishment, Pearl needed a job and Auburn needed hope. He turned Auburn from an SEC doormat into a championship-level program. Pearl’s teams were excellent at defending the rim, annually ranking near the top of the country in…
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