- Joined
- May 8, 2002
- Posts
- 393,864
- Reaction score
- 43
It's a big-time matchup forthcoming on Friday night at State Farm Arena in Atlanta with the 8-seed Michigan Wolverines facing off against the 1-seed of the South region in the NCAA Tournament, the Auburn Tigers.
Auburn is led by firebrand head coach Bruce Pearl, who made a name for himself leading Tennessee before he ended up with the Tigers. On Thursday, both teams met with the media to discuss the big matchup in the Sweet 16 and Pearl had a few things to say about the maize and blue and what they bring to the table, as well as his thoughts on head coach Dusty May.
Here are the things that Pearl said about Michigan basketball in his Thursday press conference.
I haven't seen this since I watched McHale and Parish, right? These two guys are special. Goldin, in the Big Ten he was the best player on the floor almost every single night.
And Wolf, there's not another 7-footer in college basketball that resembles him. He's got Larry Bird-type ball handling, passing, feel. He's just a gifted, gifted player. Obviously, they work beautifully together.
They're going up against Dylan Cardwell and Johni Broome and Chaney Johnson, those three guys are going to be the focus of our defensive attack. Our ability to defend those two guys as well as No. 42 comes off the bench and shoots it a little bit for them, is going to be really the difference in the outcome.
Michigan is as good as anybody in this field. They are. And I told our guys, I felt like Creighton could be in this group very easily. They made four out of the last five Sweet 16s, and I told our guys, if we can beat Creighton, when we get to Atlanta, there's not going to be anything there that's going to be beyond overwhelm us, or maybe even the Final Four.
If we're good enough to beat Creighton, if we're good enough to beat Michigan.
And of course, the survive and advance thing, I think that's really true for the first and second round for a 1 seed. It is about survive and advance for the top seeds. You get to this point, we feel like we're playing for a national championship now, and we have four times we're going to have to do it. That's how I feel. I'm just telling you how I feel.
You don't feel like you're playing for the National Championship in the first and second round.
How good of a hire was Dusty May for Michigan? How good of a hire was that?
A piece of history, back when I was a coach at University of Southern Indiana, USI in Evansville, Indiana, he played for Oakland City and played for Mike Sandifar. So we played them one time.
Then I just remembered him from being on Florida staffs, on Mike White's staff for a little bit, right? Am I correct about that? Okay.
Then my dad lived in South Florida, and my dad would sort of every now and then go to breakfast meetings with sort of basketball people down in South Florida that love basketball, anything for some bagels and cream cheese, anything. Dusty remembered my dad being at a couple of his breakfast meetings when he was trying to talk to basketball people about building the Florida Atlantic program.
Then the third thing would simply be when he hired KT Harrell. KT was a great player for us at Auburn my very first year. My first year at Auburn, the team had one or two players that belonged to the SEC. KT belonged not only to the SEC, but he was an SEC All-Star. We didn't have that much to go around him, and our guys knew it. Our guys had, as you would expect, a very tough year during regular season, but they never quit.
Yet our guys knew on that first year's team, KT's team, that we were going to get it going. They could tell by the way we were coaching, the way we were recruiting, the way we were treating them. I so wanted KT's team my first year to be a part of that foundation, to be a part of what was going to happen, and I didn't think it was possible for them because we just weren't talented enough.
That team came to Nashville and beat Mississippi State, beat Texas A&M, and beat LSU, three huge upsets, and then we played on the Saturday against Kentucky, a team that won the national championship. We didn't belong in any of those games. That first year team, KT Harrell's team laid the groundwork for Auburn basketball in the future.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl on Michigan basketball matchup Sweet 16
Continue reading...
Auburn is led by firebrand head coach Bruce Pearl, who made a name for himself leading Tennessee before he ended up with the Tigers. On Thursday, both teams met with the media to discuss the big matchup in the Sweet 16 and Pearl had a few things to say about the maize and blue and what they bring to the table, as well as his thoughts on head coach Dusty May.
Here are the things that Pearl said about Michigan basketball in his Thursday press conference.
The uniqueness of Michigan's lineup with two seven-footers
I haven't seen this since I watched McHale and Parish, right? These two guys are special. Goldin, in the Big Ten he was the best player on the floor almost every single night.
And Wolf, there's not another 7-footer in college basketball that resembles him. He's got Larry Bird-type ball handling, passing, feel. He's just a gifted, gifted player. Obviously, they work beautifully together.
They're going up against Dylan Cardwell and Johni Broome and Chaney Johnson, those three guys are going to be the focus of our defensive attack. Our ability to defend those two guys as well as No. 42 comes off the bench and shoots it a little bit for them, is going to be really the difference in the outcome.
Playing Michigan in the Sweet 16
Michigan is as good as anybody in this field. They are. And I told our guys, I felt like Creighton could be in this group very easily. They made four out of the last five Sweet 16s, and I told our guys, if we can beat Creighton, when we get to Atlanta, there's not going to be anything there that's going to be beyond overwhelm us, or maybe even the Final Four.
If we're good enough to beat Creighton, if we're good enough to beat Michigan.
And of course, the survive and advance thing, I think that's really true for the first and second round for a 1 seed. It is about survive and advance for the top seeds. You get to this point, we feel like we're playing for a national championship now, and we have four times we're going to have to do it. That's how I feel. I'm just telling you how I feel.
You don't feel like you're playing for the National Championship in the first and second round.
On Dusty May
How good of a hire was Dusty May for Michigan? How good of a hire was that?
A piece of history, back when I was a coach at University of Southern Indiana, USI in Evansville, Indiana, he played for Oakland City and played for Mike Sandifar. So we played them one time.
Then I just remembered him from being on Florida staffs, on Mike White's staff for a little bit, right? Am I correct about that? Okay.
Then my dad lived in South Florida, and my dad would sort of every now and then go to breakfast meetings with sort of basketball people down in South Florida that love basketball, anything for some bagels and cream cheese, anything. Dusty remembered my dad being at a couple of his breakfast meetings when he was trying to talk to basketball people about building the Florida Atlantic program.
Then the third thing would simply be when he hired KT Harrell. KT was a great player for us at Auburn my very first year. My first year at Auburn, the team had one or two players that belonged to the SEC. KT belonged not only to the SEC, but he was an SEC All-Star. We didn't have that much to go around him, and our guys knew it. Our guys had, as you would expect, a very tough year during regular season, but they never quit.
Yet our guys knew on that first year's team, KT's team, that we were going to get it going. They could tell by the way we were coaching, the way we were recruiting, the way we were treating them. I so wanted KT's team my first year to be a part of that foundation, to be a part of what was going to happen, and I didn't think it was possible for them because we just weren't talented enough.
That team came to Nashville and beat Mississippi State, beat Texas A&M, and beat LSU, three huge upsets, and then we played on the Saturday against Kentucky, a team that won the national championship. We didn't belong in any of those games. That first year team, KT Harrell's team laid the groundwork for Auburn basketball in the future.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl on Michigan basketball matchup Sweet 16
Continue reading...
