No yelling. No slamming clipboards. No heated arguments. Just a room full of guys with their heads down, trying to process what had happened. Bruce Pearl sat in a locker room. His Southern Indiana Screaming Eagles were down 18 points at halftime in the Division II national championship game. They had shot an abysmal 6-for-32 from the field in the first half. But the head coach remained calm and reminded the team what needed to be done. And well, 20 minutes later, they weren’t just a team that had finished third in their own conference—they were national champions. That was three decades ago.

Now, Pearl is trying to do it all over again. This time, at Auburn. His team had an incredible season but stumbled toward the finish line. And now, as they chase the one thing he hasn’t brought to Neville Arena—a national championship—he’s taking a different approach. This time, he’s being brutally honest.

After top-seeded Auburn took care of business against No. 16 seed Alabama State, Pearl didn’t sugarcoat anything. “Well, that Alabama State had already accomplished more than our team had accomplished,” he said in a postgame press conference.

It wasn’t a dig—it was a fact. He pointed to Dylan Cardwell, Johni Broome, JP Pegues, and Chris Moore as the only players on his roster who had ever won an NCAA Tournament game before this one, while the whole of Alabama State had a win to its name.

The Hornets came into the game fresh off the biggest moment in their program’s history—a historic first-ever NCAA Tournament win on March 18, 2025. They had already made history. Auburn? They were supposed to win. But according to Pearl, not in the way they did. It just wasn’t the standard. “No, we won’t beat Creighton if we play like we did tonight. No,” he added. And he wasn’t wrong.

On paper, Auburn’s 83-63 win was exactly what you’d expect from a No. 1 seed vs. No. 16 seed matchup. They won by 20 points and had four players in double figures. Miles Kelly tied a program postseason record for single-game three-pointers. Chaney Johnson had his first double-digit scoring game in six outings. Auburn’s defense delivered too, holding Alabama State to under 40% shooting and just 30% from three. But that isn’t all to the story.

Auburn missed 14 free throws and turned over the ball twice more than the Hornets had. A more glaring issue was that the Alabama St was able to recover from a 13-point deficit in the first quarter to reduce the lead to 1 with little over a minute left in the first quarter. Mind you, this is a team with 16 regular season defeats and Tigers, a team with 16 quad-1 wins. So, not just Pearl but his players knew they weren’t doing things right.

“We’ve got to step it up,” Cardwell said. “We’re not at the point where we want to be.” Johni Broome felt it too. “I had to change myself. I wasn’t playing good basketball at all.” That moment of urgency led to a 9-0 Auburn run that changed the game.

Auburn dominated. But the way they got there—the lapses and the slow start—has people wondering: Is this team ready for what’s next?

Auburn vs. Creighton: a battle of power vs. precision

Creighton is coming off delivering an upset to one of ACC’s top teams– Louisville. They managed 16 points in the first 10 minutes before launching a 19-2 run. Steven Ashworth set the tone with 13 first-half points while Jamiya Neal led with 29. By the end of it, the Bluejays had shot 57.1% from the field, 45.8% from deep, and grabbed 37 rebounds. Well, Auburn’s looked nothing like it. 45% and 31.4%, respectively. But again, shooting is Creighton’s strength and if the Tigers want to get that W, they need to repeat their defensive heroics.

They have ranked 7th in the nation in terms of three-point defense, allowing just 29%. That’s bad news for Bluejays who are 5-5 when they have shot 7 or less threes. But don’t count out Ryan Kalkbrenner. The 7-foot-1 center is led the Big East in field goal percentage (.655) while ranking second with 19.4 points per contest. Coach Greg McDermott also knows to plant him in the paint.

Then there’s the SEC vs. Big East factor. Auburn didn’t face a single Big East team all season, while Creighton had two SEC matchups—losing both to Texas A&M and Alabama. Auburn went 1-2 against those same teams. Do those results mean anything? Maybe not. In March, matchups matter more than past records.