Bruce Pearl has never had a losing season.
If Pearl wants to be able to brag about that past this year, his Tigers will have to get things turned around quickly.
The games have been close, but lately the Tigers haven't been able to find a way to win in crunch time.
"Adversity reveals character, it doesn't build it," Pearl said. "They are still playing hard, competing hard and working hard. My message to the team this morning was we have to go to class this week, don't let the pain of not winning get involved and become a distraction to other aspects of being a student-athlete."
Pearl said he also stressed to his players the importance of staying in the moment.
"Don't look back and don't look too far ahead," Pearl said. "Some late offensive rebounds have hurt us and some late turnovers have hurt us. We need to improve in those two areas."
The momentum may not be there right now, but according to Pearl, his team, despite their struggles, still approaches every game with an attitude and a belief that they can come away victorious.
"I'm sure when you have lost four in a row that it is a confidence issue," Pearl said. "But it has been a confidence issue from the day I got the job. It is still a confidence issue. I have to continue to come up with game plans and strategies and things for us to continue to be able to compete and have a chance to win games. That is all we can do."
Of those four losses, only one has been a double-digit defeat, a 71-61 home loss to Texas A&M. Also in that group is a heartbreaking two-point loss at Alabama, a game that Auburn controlled the majority of.
"Right now we're just trying to stay together as a team," said senior guard Malcolm Canada. "As we stay together as a team, we are trying to take the positive after these games and move try to move forward with them and make a late run. Stay together, stick together, and stay positive."
Canada attributed some of the late-game collapses to poor execution and lack of faith in the game plan from the coaching staff.
"Just us not staying committed and trusting one another and trusting our coaches, who worked hard and put us in the right positions to make plays defensively," Canada said. "And then coming down to offense and executing our plays offensively. We're not doing what we need to do."
Even with the losses, Canada says this team is leaps and bounds improved from last year's squad, mostly because of the team's mindset.
"We are putting ourself in position to win all these games," Canada said. "Rather than last year, where we went into the game with defeat already on our mind. This year we know we can win these games. These last few games we dropped the ball on ourself. If we can just stay with it and hold the lead when we have it, we'll be in good shape. But we keep shooting ourselves in the foot."
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