AUBURN AUTHORITY

Bruce Pearl to fans: Don't be patient, but stay with us

James Crepea
Montgomery Advertiser
Bruce Pearl returns to Knoxville on Jan. 31.

AUBURN -- Bruce Pearl has a request to the reenergized Auburn basketball fan base: maintain your resolve as he goes about fixing the downtrodden program.

"I'm not asking anybody to be patient – don't be patient - but don't quit on us," Pearl said. "Don't be patient, I'm not patient either, our players shouldn't be patient. It's been 10 years since we made the NCAA Tournament - don't be patient - but stay with us. I don't know what it's going to look like."

Auburn fans knew how dreadful the Tigers looked during the past four years under Tony Barbee. Despite one of the most woeful periods in the program's history fans are gobbling up season tickets to the point where Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs told the Montgomery Advertiserhe suspects Auburn Arena to be sold out by the time the season starts.

"We've got a great facility over there, one of the best in the nation," Jacobs said last week, "and now we're looking forward to this fall having it completely full."

Pearl has been blown away by the support his new program has received already.

"It's really encouraging, it's very encouraging," he said. "We've got to try to put out a better product and give people something to watch."

Pearl has been busy assembling a non-conference schedule. The Tigers will open the season against Pearl's former team, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and play road games at Colorado, Texas Tech and Clemson.

He's being proactive in trying to find ways to bring more fans and new fans, particularly those from outside the immediate area, to the Plains more frequently.

"We got to do things creatively like how do we make it easier for people in Birmingham to get here? Do we have a satellite location someplace in the southeastern part of the town and do we have a bus service (and) have it be a fun thing that we can do," Pearl said. "How do we get people that live three hours away that want to have a great season ticket, that want to come to Saturday games but can't use their tickets during the week, how do we create something for them to be able to turn those tickets back into the ticket office (and) let locals be able to use those good seats? It's a win-win, they don't want those seats sitting in their desk.

"People look at Auburn and where it's located and think it's a weakness as far as basketball, I think it's a strength. From Atlanta, Montgomery, Birmingham, if I can get people in those communities to come in on the weekends and use their seats and buy their seats and not 'I'll just get seats on the games I want to go to.' No, buy your season tickets and then most importantly, on the games you can't go, get them back to us so that we can resell them."