Auburn renews in-state rivalry with game vs. UAB in Birmingham

Bruce Pearl

Bruce Pearl and No. 11 Auburn host No. 25 Washington on Friday night at Auburn Arena.

Bruce Pearl took a moment on Thursday to re-apologize for a statement he made years ago, when he first accepted the job. At the time, he rightly said that UAB had the best basketball program in the state.

It was true, in Pearl’s first season at Auburn, when the Tigers finished 15-20, UAB was winning games in the NCAA Tournament. Alabama — though it had an arguably better roster, was in the NIT. Troy and South Alabama were both below .500.

But Pearl, to this day, recognizes that, although his most direct point was to show where Auburn stood in relation to UAB, he might have been providing a backhanded insult to the other area schools.

“It may not have been the right thing to say, I can speak for Auburn, but I shouldn’t have spoken for Alabama. It wasn’t a knock on Alabama; it was a compliment to UAB,” Pearl said on Thursday. “I actually would apologize if in saying that I insulted South Alabama or Troy or anybody else, or even particularly Alabama, because Auburn and Alabama are the SEC schools. But UAB had it going.”

We can now fast forward five years and, in reality, maybe it’s only Pearl that remembers that comment. Auburn enters a game with UAB on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. inside Legacy Arena in Birmingham. No longer is UAB the best program in the state of Alabama. Auburn even got the better of them a season ago at home.

Right now, no one would get in trouble, no one would need to apologize for saying that No. 8 Auburn (8-1) is the best team in the state. It’s an obvious fact. And UAB will be the upset-hungry underdog when the two programs face each other in the Mike Slive Invitational.

“They have a lot to gain by beating us, but we’ve got a lot to gain by beating them too,” Pearl said. "They’re a good RPI team, they play a really good schedule, they’re always going to be competitive in Conference USA, and so it will help us get ready.”

UAB is 6-3 on the season and is ranked No. 198 in Kenpom. The Blazers' three losses have come to good teams — Florida State, Charleston and Memphis. Inside Birmingham, they’re 4-0, without any notable wins on their resume.

The Blazers are rated on Kenpom as the No. 5 offensive rebounding team in the country, getting the ball on nearly 40 percent of their own misses. Auburn was out-rebounded by 10 on Saturday in its win over Dayton, and as a result, conducted a more physical practice on Tuesday.

“We were able to survive that contact practice, it’s really hard to hit in season, we hit hard and part of the reason was because Dayton had hit us so hard,” Pearl said. “UAB is gonna hit us hard.”

Auburn’s players weren’t available to speak with the media this week because they were taking finals, but they’re still preparing for a difficult test against UAB. The Blazers aren’t the program that Pearl praised in 2014. The Tigers aren’t the program that won just four conference games all those years ago, either.

This game will feature a power against, well, an upper-middle, Conference USA contender. And Pearl, ever the salesman, is trying to get people excited about the game. Like he does with almost every home game, he finds out the remaining number of tickets available, and advertises to fans the best way to buy them.

Now that Auburn is the best team in Alabama, he wants to make sure people are there to see it.

“We talked about the fact that it would be really cool if on December 15,” Pearl said, “kinda in the heart of the non conference college basketball season, prior to Christmas, Birmingham, Alabama had as good of an environment for college basketball as any place in the country.”

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