SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAYS

October 13, 2026

Steven Pearl

Auburn Tigers

Men's Media Day Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Steven Pearl enters his second season as Auburn's head coach and 18th season in the SEC. That's a lot of seasons for such a young man.

Please welcome Steven Pearl.

STEVEN PEARL: Good morning. Hopefully I can coach better than I plan having children. The timing not so great.

First of all, I want to thank Commissioner Sankey for his vision and leadership during these unparalleled times. I want to thank Garth for his leadership and just how much he fights for us as SEC head basketball coaches.

I want to thank John Cohen, Djenane Paul, Dr. Roberts, our administration for the support they've given me in my short time at Auburn to give us the resources that we needed in order to build the team that we have this year.

Obviously excited about year two on the plains, excited to have been able to have an offseason. You don't realize how valuable an offseason is until you finally have one.

Really excited about this group. It's a group that I think we had to address a lot of things last year that we were deficient in, and I think we did those things. Being able to retain the two guys that came with me, Tahaad Pettiford and Kevin Overton, was instrumental. If people want to question why we played in the NIT, I think that was a great reason right there. Being able to keep those two guys I think allowed them to feel good and to be able to trust the things that we were doing at Auburn.

Really excited about both those guys coming back and being able to build this around them. Just looking to finally being able to play against somebody else tomorrow night. With that, I'll take any questions.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Steven, how much have you been able to kind of see here in the preseason the depth that y'all were able to build? That was one of the weaker spots last season, especially towards the end. Only had six or seven in the rotation. How much can you kind of feel that and sense that, and how much do you want to lean on that like years past?

STEVEN PEARL: Yeah, Ferg, throughout this summer dealing with injuries, obviously dealing with some eligibility concerns throughout the summer, I think we were able to really lean into the depth that we have built in the portal and the high school ranks and obviously in our retention pieces that we brought back.

Throughout the summer if a guy went down with an injury, we were able to put somebody in at his position, and we were able to still have productive practices. Last year we had stretches during the season where if a guy was a little dinged up, we really couldn't have a productive practice because we only had six or seven guys that we felt like could play in the rotation. I'm in a place now this year where we feel like we have 13 guys that could really play meaningful minutes and contribute for us this year.

Now, our rotation won't be 13, but the ability to be able to deal with injuries, deal with foul trouble, and obviously in this crazy world we live in while we're still figuring out eligibility, it's nice to have that many pieces that you can plug and play as the year goes on.

Q. I think you mentioned a few months ago that KO was a crucial recruiting piece for you all in the offseason, calling other guys, talking to other guys. How much of that relationship was important in bringing Tahaad back, and then just overall having a veteran back court for you in year two, how much of a difference does that make?

STEVEN PEARL: Yeah, obviously it really helps in your conversations with these kids in the portal when you're able to tell them we're able to return two of the better guards in the SEC with Tahaad and KO coming back. Obviously being able to get their input for me was really important as a coach.

One of the things we've always done at Auburn is when we bring these guys on visits, we need our returning players to sign off on them, because we're not going to bring in a low-character player because of how talented he is if he doesn't gel well with the guys that we have coming back.

Tahaad and KO had to sign off on a lot of the portal guys that we brought in this year. You're right, KO was calling and texting all them, and then he was also calling and texting me every day asking for updates. So I appreciate his buy-in so quickly to want to help assemble this team, and I appreciated their input throughout the process. I think we've assembled a group that's connected and obviously is excited to play.

Q. With the turnover on this team you kind of talked about the work ethic early on from this team from previous groups. What kind of drives that, especially with all the new guys on the team this year?

STEVEN PEARL: Yeah, I think that's part of our job as coaches to be able to identify players that have high work ethics and really want to live in the gym. One of the biggest challenges that I made to my staff in this offseason was being more present. Not just one or two guys, but the whole staff really being present in that gym every single day, working guys out. I thought the staff really responded to that this summer.

Every day I would come in or every day I would leave there was two or three coaches down there on the floor with two or three different players, and I think that's really important when you are talking about time invested with your players and with your program.

It's a group, like we talked about earlier this summer, that's really bought into working hard and putting the time in. That's infectious. I think this group has really used that as their identity, and I think it's allowed us to continue to make strides through this offseason.

Q. I was going to ask about an update on Owen, how he's kind of doing coming back and if he's able to kind of get back here in the near future, just what kind of dimension do you think he can bring to the front court with Bukky and Narcisse, but he's got a different style and can get that flexibility up front?

STEVEN PEARL: Yeah, Owen is progressing nicely. He's in a good spot right now. Yesterday or the day before he had a 45-minute workout on the floor. His legs looked good. He was bouncy. He was moving around. I think his foot is in a good place right now, but we are not going to rush him back.

When Clark and our doctors tell us that he's 100%, then we'll start to move him back into full contact in practice and then obviously try and play on a minutes restriction through our first couple of games as we move forward.

As far as what he brings, one of the things that we really had to address right away was our ability to protect the rim. Last year we had very -- we had no shot-blocking. Tahaad might have been our best shot blocker last year at 6'1", and that's a problem. We went out there, and obviously we were able to get Narcisse very quickly from the international ranks, and then to get Bukky Oboye, to have two 7-footers on that frontline that can alter and block shots was really important.

Then from, there you have to go and find a back-to-the-basket scorer. If you look at some of our teams recently and the success that we've had offensively, to be able to have a guy like Johni Broome or Jaylin Williams or Walker Kessler or guys that can score with their back to the basket, we have a lot of built-out offense for guys that can do that.

So going and recruiting Owen was very intentional because Owen is a guy that can really score with his back to the basket. He's got good hands. He's got good footwork. He can finish with either hand around the rim.

Going to get him, that adds a different dimension to that front court and his ability to play four and five. Now, at the four he's going to have to sit down and defend real athletes in our league in the SEC and be able to guard guards, but one of the things that I loved about his game was just his ability to show that he can really score with his back to the basket, and I think that will be great with a lot of the actions that we run on our offense.

Q. You mentioned the benefits just with the retention of playing in the NIT last season, where do you see the most benefits now as you enter the new year from playing in the NIT since a lot of teams in your position wouldn't have done that last year?

STEVEN PEARL: First and foremost, we talked about at the beginning, but to be able to keep Tahaad and KO I think was the biggest thing that we were able to pull from that. For me personally, it was great to have five additional reps to be able to compete and coach and be in difficult situations and have to motivate and rally a team when they really don't want to be there in that moment.

I'm not trying to be selfish, but it was incredibly valuable for me as a first-year head coach to be able to have those reps, and you can't really listen to the outside noise and the things that people are going to write and say about what we did. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'm glad we did it.

I thought it was really important as a first-year head coach to teach our guys a valuable lesson in life. When something doesn't go your way, you can't just quit. You got to see things through. I thought the group that stuck together at the end, after that first 20 minutes of that first game where we were down to South Alabama, I might have been regretting the decision a little bit, but I thought they really came through. I thought they had a lot of fun those last four games really competing.

I thought the NCAA and the committee with the NIT, I thought they did a great job having that in concession with the NCAA Tournament and the Final Four. They felt like they were a part of something, even though the stage obviously wasn't nearly as big as the NCAA Tournament. But I thought our guys enjoyed their experience.

A lot of those guys played really well, and some of them transferred to schools in our league, and they did themselves a lot of favors. I thought there was a lot of positives for the players, but also for me as their coach.

Q. You got that depth as you talked about earlier with Bukky and Narcisse, and Narcisse's eligibility clearance kind of helped clear the way to have some depth inside. What's the difference, do you think, between Narcisse's game and Bukky's game that really sticks out to you this in order to have that presence on the inside, the season that you didn't maybe have last year?

STEVEN PEARL: Yeah, they're drastically different players, which I think adds an interesting wrinkle to our frontline. When you get Bukky out there, Bukky is going to be a guy that, one, can stretch the floor and can really shoot it.

Since we got back from Greece, he's shooting, like, 40-something percent from three. He's made 10 or 12 threes from practice since then. He's shown an ability to stretch the floor.

In-ball screens, he can really get out and attack the rim. When you throw it up there, he's an elite athlete that can really go above the rim and high-point it and catch lobs. He's got good hands. He can score with his back to the basket. He's probably going to be more of a threat in transition.

I think we'll be a little more dimensional with him defensively because of his ability to sit down and move his feet. He was a guard until he got to Santa Clara and grew 6 or 7 inches, so he's still learning how to play at 7'1". I think he's starting to figure things out a little bit.

Then Narcisse is just a bigger body that's going to take up a ton of space. Going to be able to alter and block shots around the rim. He's got these huge hands, and he really has great hands, so he can rebound out of his area and really possess the ball.

He brings a level of physicality, but he's got great footwork, and he can actually finish around the rim for his size.

They're going to be two very different players when they're out there on the floor, which I think will make it challenging for our opponents to have to scout us, because they're going to have to play against two totally different 7-footers on that frontline.

Q. Defense has been a big thing for you since you've been at Auburn. You have Coach Pearl -- your dad used to call you the defensive coordinator. Perimeter defense last year was one of the things that you guys struggled with. What's the thing that you feel like you guys improved the most in the perimeter defense, and what did you feel like you learned the most from your team from that trip to Greece?

STEVEN PEARL: I mean, I don't know if our perimeter defense struggled as much as our inability to just block shots around the rim.

I think one of the things that really doesn't get talked about enough, if you look at some of our best defensive teams -- like think about those frontlines. Think about the 2024 team. You had Johni, Chaney, and Dylan at the rim to protect us when our guards would get blown by. Our with perimeter defense has sucked for years, okay? We just had great rim protectors to clean it up, okay? Thank you for laughing at that.

Yeah, we want our guards to be aggressive, right, and try and make plays and gamble, and we want to do a lot of switching. In order to do that, though, you have to have a back -- or you have to have a back line back there that can clean stuff up when things go wrong.

Richard can tell you all about that from his time at Alabama. I think the difference was we just -- we had a 6'7" center in Filip Jovic, Murph was playing on one foot all year long, and Emeka was out for the season.

It just made it really challenging for when we were trying to be aggressive on the perimeter. We had no one to protect the rim. As the year went on, we really tried to change what we did, and we really tried to be more of a pack line defense and make teams shoot threes, and teams just time and time again had historic shooting nights against us. That was just a challenge.

That's on us as a coaching staff and the way that we constructed that team last year. We didn't do a good enough job of putting the pieces together that fit with how we like to defend. I think more than anything we have more size at the rim this year to be able to protect us when we are aggressive on the perimeter, if we do get driven or if we get beat back door.

Q. We've seen Tahaad play at a very high level. We've also seen some inconsistency. What are your expectations for him this year? What's his ceiling?

STEVEN PEARL: You know, one of the things that I kind of just touched on was we didn't do a very good job of constructing our roster last year, Kevin, and I think that really fed into some of Tahaad's struggles.

I don't think we had enough perimeter shooting around him. I don't think -- we had no lob threats at the rim, and when you think about great point guards, they have to have great pieces around them to allow them to play in space and allow them to get cleaner shots off.

Last year too much of the defense was being focused on Tahaad because there weren't enough pieces around them that could make them pay if they were to, when he drives to the basket, help off the big. We didn't have anybody to go throw it up to to catch it, high-point it, and dunk it. To be able to stick around him with guys that can shoot threes and guys that are career 35 to 40% three-point shooters, they have to make a decision. Am I going to help off the strong side corner and go help on Tahaad's drive, or am I going to stay home on the shooter? That allows Tahaad to play more in space.

Since we got back from Greece, Tahaad's efficiency numbers have been really, really good, and I would like to see those continues. He's continuing to work on his leadership on and off the floor. His routine has been really solid. He's in a great place mentally right now. I think part of that is we did a better job of constructing this roster to be able to bring out the strengths of his game.