What Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said about Auburn basketball, Bruce Pearl and the SEC

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One of the biggest SEC games of the college basketball takes place Saturday, and at its forefront are two of the league’s best examples in coaching.

No. 1 Auburn basketball and No. 6 Tennessee will go toe-to-toe at 7:30 p.m. CST Saturday at Neville Arena. Helming the Tigers is Bruce Pearl, and in command of the Volunteers is Rick Barnes. They’ve combined for 21 years at their respective institutions, making them the league’s longest-tenured head coaches.

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“I have so much respect for Coach Barnes and that coaching staff,” Pearl said Thursday. “He’s done an amazing job with that Tennessee team. They play as good a defense as anybody in the country, with their field goal percentage defense and their 3-point defense.”

Ahead of the top-10 matchup, here’s everything Barnes said about Pearl, Auburn basketball and its place in a stacked league.

Why Rick Barnes thinks Bruce Pearl is a ‘great coach’

There’s plenty of familiarity between Barnes and Pearl, both of whom have coached Tennessee and will be facing off for the 17th time as head coaches in their careers Saturday.

Barnes, much like Pearl, lauded his opponent’s ability, calling him a “great coach.”

“He’s been around the game a long time, understands how he wants his teams to play, recruits that type of system; just extremely sound,” Barnes said. “You look at his record. Everywhere he’s been, he’s been successful. (I have) Just the utmost respect for Bruce and the fact that he — again, I think the key to coaching is knowing how you want to play and recruiting guys and getting them to play that way, and he does that as well as anyone.”

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ATHENS, GA – JANUARY 18 – Auburn’s Chaney Johnson (31) during the game between the #1 Auburn Tigers and the #23 Georgia Bulldogs at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens, GA on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. Photo by Zach…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/tennessee-coach-rick-barnes-said-221012127.html

Author : The Montgomery Advertiser

Publish date : 2025-01-24 22:10:00

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