Pearl: ‘Stop messing with my son’

AUBURN | Chad Baker-Mazara has publicly apologized and taken accountability. Bruce Pearl is asking Auburn supporters to move on.

Baker-Mazara’s Flagrant 2 foul and ejection three minutes into Auburn’s first-round loss to Yale has certainly been a major topic of discussion over the last six days.

But Pearl’s has seen the personal side of it and how much Baker-Mazara has struggled with his mistake and his perception of letting down his teammates.

“I'm just going to tell the Auburn family, while I know you're disappointed, if somebody was messing with your son, you'd stand up for your son a little bit, wouldn't you? Stop messing with my son. Stop it,” said Pearl.

“He apologized. He made a mistake. And I'm calling you out. I'm not having it. For those on social media that want to continue, unfollow those people. Stop it.”

Pearl opened up a 20-minute season wrap-up interview session with reporters Thursday dissecting all the reasons for the upset loss including why he Baker-Mazara’s elbow shouldn't have been upgraded to a Flagrant 2.

“I thought the fact that it was retaliatory, that five seconds earlier Chad-Baker got hit in the throat on a flagrant play that was missed, should have been taken into consideration,” said Pearl. “I just thought the finality of, you work all year long to put yourself in that position and then on a judgment call remove him from the game. I just thought it was too excessive.”

While Pearl felt like Auburn still should have won a game it was leading by 10 points with seven minutes left — turnovers played a big part in the blown lead — Baker-Mazara’s exit allowed Yale to make an important adjustment.

"I knew right there we were in trouble. I knew right there, because they had one great defender and we thought that they'd put that defender on Chad and therefore our point guards would have some freedom to do more things,” said Pearl.

“But when we lost Chad and they had one great defender on our point guards, the only playmaking guard I really had left was Denver. And he did a great job. Denver did a phenomenal job. But there was a reason why Chad-Baker was SEC all-tournament team. He was one of the best players in postseason in the SEC.”

And it was at the SEC Tournament that Baker-Mazara helped lead the Tigers to their third-ever tournament championship and second in the last five years under Pearl, which means another banner will be hung in Neville Arena at the start of next season.

“The fact that we could lose to Yale speaks volumes about the 27 games we did win,” said Pearl. “This team beat the teams they were supposed to beat almost every night. And for that, I compliment them and for that I'm proud of them, because they prepared. They trained. They worked very hard, and they played well together. Obviously, they were unselfish.

“At the end of the day, if that's not good enough, I don't know what is. And our guys are a little sensitive to it. And here's the last thing: I'm not asking anybody to kiss my ass, OK? I'm not. You want to write good things or say good things, great. I hope I'll work really hard to earn those things. And I will give, at some point — maybe it's in the future, maybe it's in the past — I'll give you reason to criticize. You want to criticize the Yale game, criticize the Yale game. Let's tear it up. Let's ask questions about the Yale game. I'll try to explain why we lost that lead. Have at it. But this was a great team at Auburn and I'm very proud of them.”