Bruce Pearl has told the story so many times it’s practically legend now, memorialized over 17 years as one of the great scenes in the history of college basketball.
For one day in February of 2008, the city of Memphis was the center of the sports universe: The No. 1, undefeated Memphis Tigers vs. the No. 2 Tennessee Volunteers. Beale Street was an all-day party. Celebrities like Justin Timberlake and Priscilla Presley were in the crowd. Tickets were impossible to come by. And ESPN was hyping the game all week, building toward a prime time tip-off.
But a couple hours before the game, Pearl – then the Tennessee coach – dipped into a bar near the stadium where the school was holding an alumni event. Surprising the attendees, who expected him to be sequestered away watching that last bit of film, Pearl burst out on stage and declared that his Vols were 40 minutes away from being the No. 1 team in the country.
‘We’re going to kick their ass!’ he bellowed as the crowd roared.
They did. Tennessee won, 66-62, taking the No. 1 ranking for the first time in school history as Pearl and Vols fans celebrated deep into the night.
And then, exactly 72 hours later, Tennessee lost to Vanderbilt. A month after that, it got blown out by Louisville in the Sweet 16. And the Memphis team that lost its unbeaten season, its state championship and the No. 1 ranking that night didn’t lose again until overtime of the national championship game.
Now, more than a decade and a half later, Pearl is the main character in another No. 1 vs. No. 2 epic, another in-state rivalry and another pivot point on the road to a potential national championship.
For all the times we’ve seen the Iron Bowl determine SEC and national titles on the football field, this is undoubtedly the high-water mark for a basketball game in the state of Alabama.
‘Do we think we’re the best team in the country? I think we have a chance to be, but Auburn’s the best team in the country right now,’ Alabama coach Nate Oats said after his team’s 23-point win at Texas on Tuesday. ‘We’ve got to knock them out on Saturday if we want to claim that.’
Said Pearl during a Wednesday interview on SiriusXM radio: ‘They’re the deepest and most talented team in our league, and they’re playing great right now. I want to beat Alabama more than anybody else on our schedule because that’s our rival. I don’t take it personally.’
So the stage is set for the most memorable day in a basketball rivalry that dates back to 1924, has been played 170 times and might briefly surpass the intensity of a football rivalry that has resulted in political disputes, unthinkable endings, multiple coaches being fired and the death of trees.
It’s also a measure validation for two football-first athletic departments that spent the last decade ramping up investments in basketball; Auburn giving Pearl a second chance after being exiled for NCAA violations at Tennessee, Alabama making a winning bet on a former Michigan high school coach whose success at Buffalo in his first college job translated almost instantly to the SEC.
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At this point, there’s not much new or novel about either school contending for basketball titles. Pearl got Auburn to the Final Four in 2019; Oats did the same last year. One or the other (or sometimes both) has been ranked in each of their last seven meetings. It’s not Duke-North Carolina or Kentucky-Louisville, but it has that same hint of upstart energy from 2008 when Tennessee and Memphis were on a collision course for their one-of-a-kind meeting.
But it’s both the brilliance of college basketball and the sport’s greatest fundamental flaw that these rare No. 1 vs. No. 2 games are usually remembered more for the hype and the stuff that happens around them – like Pearl’s surprise visit to the alumni party – than the actual results.
Because in the end, there’s a pretty firm limit to how much these games actually mean.
In 2008, that night was the apex of Tennessee’s season. Getting stopped cold in the Sweet 16 was, in the end, somewhat of a disappointing result for a team that had put so much energy into reaching the top of the sport.
Similarly, there’s no result on Saturday that will change the fundamental dynamic that both Alabama and Auburn are among the six or seven teams that will enter the postseason as favorites to win it all. Heck, they’re even playing again in Auburn on March 8, maybe once more the week after that at the SEC tournament and – who knows – perhaps one final time in San Antonio the first weekend in April with everything on the line.
This game? It’s a big one for all the obvious reasons, but it’s probably more of an appetizer than the main course for either of their seasons.
Think of it this way: Last time we had a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup was November of 2021 when Gonzaga beat UCLA. Neither team reached the Elite Eight that season.
Last time we had it in a conference game was Jan. 4, 2016 when No. 1 Kansas beat No. 2 Oklahoma in three overtimes. Fast-forward to March and it was the Sooners – not the Jayhawks – cutting down nets in celebration of a Final Four bid.
And the last time we had it in a regular season game, between two schools who consider each other their biggest rival, was Feb. 5, 1998 when No. 2 North Carolina blew out No. 1 Duke 97-73. The Blue Devils got revenge three weeks later at home, but the Tar Heels won the rubber match in the ACC championship game.
The point is, for all the pageantry around this weekend in Tuscaloosa and the impulse for both fan bases to either revel in their glory or despair on Saturday night, this isn’t the football Iron Bowl. The result won’t define either team’s season. There won’t be a Kick Six-type moment that echoes through the decades.
What it will be, though, is a forever milestone in the history of a long basketball rivalry that has never seen these heights before. The winner will celebrate and the loser will hurt. But no matter which side comes out ahead Saturday, there’s a whole lot more to come.