Bruce Pearl usually takes his time, and Saturday was no exception. He sits down in front of a small room of reporters — who are, as a result of the visiting team's media presence in Auburn Arena on this given night — currently packed in like sardines.

Auburn’s sixth-year coach clears his throat a few times, appears ready to speak, then clears it again, this time complementing the process with a sip of water. Then he opens his mouth.

“It was a great day in Auburn Arena.”

For those on campus all day long with hopes the home team would end the night victorious, it certainly was.

A day that began at center court with the taping of ESPN's basketball College GameDay on the Plains for the first time ended in that same spot — with Auburn players dancing at midcourt, celebrating their 75-66 victory over No. 13 Kentucky.

It’s the best win of the season for No. 17 Auburn’s 2019-20 resume. And at long last for Pearl, it moves his team up a peg from “good” to “very good” in his eyes — but only on the condition that Auburn takes advantage of the momentum.

“[The win] has to take us from good to very good now,” Pearl said. “It does. That's a fair question, and the point that I've been making — and maybe it's because the schedule hasn't presented it — Kentucky is the best team we've played. So I thought we stepped up and responded.

“I thought we took a step from good to very good. Now the question is can we build on it.”

How a team performs against Kentucky is one of the primary measuring sticks of success for SEC programs. One regular-season victory doesn’t turn the tides for good and push the Tigers ahead of the Wildcats, though it does tie the teams in current SEC standings. But some recent history shows that Pearl’s teams aren’t afraid of the big boys.

Auburn is 4-3 against the Wildcats since 2016, and just won back-to-back games over them for the first time in 20 years. Every loss that John Calipari has to Auburn in his tenure as Kentucky’s coach — whether it be regular season, SEC Tournament or NCAA Tournament — has been to Pearl.

As senior center Austin Wiley confidently put it, that’s why he and others came to play for Pearl, and that’s what the coach’s recent revival of a program once viewed as a doormat stands for.

They don’t want these wins to be surprises. They want them to be standards.

“That's why we came here, to make history,” Wiley said. “Like you said, fans should get used to this, because we work hard. It shouldn't be a surprising win every time we beat good teams like Kentucky. We got good players, too, so they should get used to it."

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