Auburn Basketball 2014: UWA vs. Auburn
Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl talks to players Friday, Nov. 7, 2014, during the exhibition game against West Alabama at the Auburn Arena in Auburn, Ala. (Julie Bennett/jbennett@al.com)
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Bruce Pearl
's official return to the bench is a week away, but the first-year Auburn coach greased his coaching gears with an exhibition victory Friday.
Pearl had a bit of hitch in his step three days following back surgery to repair a disc in his back, but the fiery coach's first game on the sidelines in three years proved to be exciting for the coach, even if he was grinding through pain.
"The last two days you don't realize how much a creature of habit you are," Pearl said. "Some of the old routines about what it's like the day before, the night before, the day of. What it's like in the locker room. I'm not superstitious, I'm just consistent."
An announced crowd of 8,523 watched Pearl roam the sidelines, stomp his feet, yell, sweat and limp as his Tigers pulled off a
. It was a warm-up game for Pearl and his team, which lacks size and could struggle in the paint most of the season, but the long-awaited return to the bench was special for Pearl.
It had been more than three years since he coached a game following his firing at Tennessee and subsequent three-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA. He'll coach a game that matters in the season opener against Milwaukee on Nov. 14.
Before the exhibition Friday,
Gus Malzahn
called Pearl to wish him luck.
"I can't tell you how much it meant that Gus reached out," Pearl said. "I just can't tell 'ya because, as a coach, he knew. It didn't matter if it was an exhibition game. It didn't matter what kind of a game we were playing. He knew it was my first game back in a few years, so I can't tell you how much that meant to me."
Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn, left, stands to greet new basketball coach Bruce Pearl Tuesday, March 18, 2014, at the Auburn Arena in Auburn, Ala. (Julie Bennett/jbennett@al.com)
Pearl underwent surgery Tuesday morning in Pensacola and returned to Auburn in time for an afternoon practice Wednesday.
"He sent us a text saying, the good thing is he got out of the hospital," said newcomer
Antoine Mason
, who scored a game-high 22 points. "The bad thing was that he was out of the hospital."
Mason and his teammates had to tell Pearl to calm down at times on the bench. They didn't want to see their coach rip any stitches, after all.
"He's crazy," said
KT Harrell
, who added 21 points. "He shouldn't be out there. He shouldn't have been out there today. He should just be relaxing. That's how passionate he is about the game. And that's much he cares about us. He wants us to win and wants us to be great. He's not going to miss out on anything."
Pearl will certainly feel the effects of the constant movement along the sideline when he wakes up Saturday morning.
"I had a couple of foot stomps out there," Pearl said. "I'm not much of a whistler and I'm a little bit of a screamer. I try not to cuss. But when we get pushed around, and unfortunately I think we're going to get pushed around some this year, I don't like it. I've got my limitations, but I'm not going to get pushed around. We've got some work to do on that. I bet 'ya I'm pretty sore tomorrow."