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Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl came to the defense of Chad Baker-Mazara after the junior guard was ejected from the Tigers’ 78-76 loss to Yale in the first round of the 2024 NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Having already questioned the ruling in the immediate aftermath of the loss, Pearl turned his focus Thursday to Auburn fans who have been haranguing Baker-Mazara.
“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?” he said, per the Associated Press’ John Zenor. “Stop messing with my son. Stop it. 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.”
Baker-Mazara was only on the floor for three minutes of Auburn’s opening contest. At the 16:59 mark of the first half, the referees handed him a flagrant-2 foul for elbowing Yale guard August Mahoney.
It’s not as though his ejection was the sole reason for the fourth-seeded Tigers going down. They turned the ball over 14 times and allowed the Bulldogs to get to the free-throw line 31 times.
Auburn led with a little over two minutes left before John Poulakidas’ deep three-pointer put Yale on top.
Of course, fans were bound to wonder what might’ve been with Baker-Mazara on the court. He averaged 10.0 points and shot 41.8 percent from the floor this season, and he had combined for 24 points across Auburn’s last two wins of the SEC tournament.
Associate head coach Steven Pearl thought Baker-Mazara’s involvement would’ve reversed the outcome.
“We beat Yale by 20 points if Chad is in that game,” Pearl said on The Next Round (via Ainslie Lee of AL.com). “I don’t want to dance around that. I’m not trying to, obviously, disrespect Yale, but we’re way better than they are and we should’ve beat them without him.”
Perhaps such a disappointing finish will spur Baker-Mazara and the Tigers on to better things in 2024-25.
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