AUBURN | When it comes to a historical timeline for Auburn men’s basketball, there’s B.B.P. and B.P.
That’s before Bruce Pearl and Bruce Pearl.
It’s been a remarkable 11 seasons under the soon-to-be winningest coach in program history.
With Auburn’s 84-68 win over Missouri Saturday, Pearl tied Joel Eaves with 213 wins. Eaves did it in 14 seasons and Pearl in 11 and a half. Pearl could become AU’s all-time winningest coach as soon as Tuesday night’s game at Texas.
The record has stood for more than 60 years and through seven other coaches.
In the 108 seasons before Pearl, Auburn won three SEC Championships, one SEC Tournament championship and advanced to the Elite Eight in eight NCAA Tournament appearances.
Under Pearl, the Tigers have won two SEC Championships, two SEC Tournament championships and advanced to the Final Four in five NCAA Tournament appearances.
And this year has the potential to be Pearl’s best team.
When Pearl was hired on March 18, 2014, AU was coming off a 10-year stretch under Jeff Lebo and Tony Barbee in which it had gone 53-111 in the conference, the worst of any team.
The Tigers hadn’t made an NCAA Tournament since 2003.
The announced attendance in Barbee’s final home game was 5,304 as AU lost 82-54 to Tennessee on Senior Day. The season would end the next week and Pearl hired six days later.
He had been out of coaching for three years and still had five months remaining on a show-cause order due to NCAA sanctions. At the time, AU was taking a chance on Pearl as much as he was taking a chance on taking over the SEC’s worst program.
It certainly worked out pretty daggum good for both parties.
Pearl has been a force of nature. He’s transformed Auburn into a national powerhouse and Neville Arena into one of the nation’s best home-court advantages, which has hosted 62 consecutive sellouts.
While other coaches moan and groan about the new NIL and transfer era, Pearl just adapts. Five of AU’s top six scorers this season began their college careers at a different school.
Pearl is still going strong at 64 years old and has the energy of someone 20 or 30 years younger. He can coach at AU as long as he wants.
Auburn would certainly like to hold off on the A.B.P. (after Bruce Pearl) era for as long as it can.
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In today’s musical journey, we go back 46 years to the day an iconic disco song along with its accompanying arm gestures made its first appearance on national T.V. On Jan. 6, 1979, the Village People played on American Bandstand where they performed their song “Y.M.C.A.” The band worked on its choreography before their appearance but it included clapping their hands over their head when they spelled out Y.M.C.A. There were a group of cheerleaders in the audience, however, and they started spelling out each letter during the song and it quickly caught on with the band adding it to their show. The song and the dance become popular across the world. It peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 100 but topped the charts in 17 other countries including the UK, Canada, Italy, Australia and Sweden. It is still played today at many sporting events. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Library of Congress in 2020. The appearance by The Village People on American Bandstand is also considered one of the first examples of gay culture being mainstreamed into popular culture.
The Village People had its beginnings in 1977 when French producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo moved to New York and heard a demo tape by singer Victor Willis, who they hired to form a new band. The group’s name derives from Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, which is known for its population of artists and members of the LGBTQ community. Their self-titled debut album was released in 77 and because of its popularity, they hired a number of dancers to perform with Willis on tour with each dressing in different outfits including an Indian, construction worker, cowboy and biker. Willis performed as a naval officer or policeman. Willis left the group in 1979 only to return nearly 40 years later in 2017. More than 25 different dancers and singers have been a part of the Village People over the last five decades. They have released 10 albums and had several other hit singles in 1978’s “Macho Man” and 1979’s “In the Navy” and “Go West.” They have sold over 100 million albums worldwide.
