The Auburn Tigers received some shocking news on Monday afternoon with their basketball program according to various reports.

As first reported by Jeff Borzello and Pete Thamel at ESPN, longtime head coach Bruce Pearl is stepping down and retiring just a month before the start of the season. His son, Steven — who has been on the Auburn staff since 2015 — is expected to take over as head coach for the upcoming season, however it is unclear right now whether or not this will be a permanent move.

Pearl has been the head coach at Auburn since 2014 and compiled a record of 244–123 including a 32-6 2024-25 season that resulted in an SEC regular season title. They compiled three regular season conference titles as well as two SEC tournament titles under Pearl and went to their only two Final Fours in program history.

Throughout the offseason, Pearl has been rumored as being interested in a potential run for the United States Senate, though it’s unknown if this is actually the reason for the retirement rather than age and fatigue related causes.

At the age of 65, Pearl has said numerous times in the last several years that he likely may retire in the near future, however the general consensus was that he had at least a couple of years left.

The announcement is shocking and the timing of it is even more so. It remains to be seen exactly how the players — who now will have 30 days to enter the transfer portal — react, but some real answers should be provided in the coming days.