Much like Bruce Pearl, two members of his staff staff will be staying at Auburn.
Assistant coaches Chad Prewett and Steven Pearl, whose contracts expired on June 1, will "absolutely" be retained, Auburn athletic director Allen Greene told AL.com on Friday.
"There's formalities," Greene said. "They knew and we all knew that we were working to get our program in a really strong position."
Greene's comments were his most definitive regarding Bruce Pearl's returning two assistants and come four days after he extended the head coach's contract through 2022-23.
Though Bruce Pearl and his staff all maintained confidence they would receive new deals, Greene spoke in less certain terms during SEC Spring Meetings a week ago, during which the U.S. Attorneys Office filed a superseding indictment against former assistant coach Chuck Person that contained some minor details but no new charges or the naming of other individuals.
Bruce Pearl is still working to find a replacement for Harris Adler on his staff, which will most likely include Steven Pearl, his son, and Wes Flanigan, while Prewett moves back to a support staff role.
Increasing compensation for his staff, which ranked at the bottom of the SEC last season, was a key factor in Bruce Pearl's contract extension talks.
Greene said the cause for the perceived delay in extending Bruce Pearl's contract and in working to retain his staff was due to in large part to his being new in the position.
"I want to make sure that we're making prudent decisions for the long game and not being too reactive to negative information," Greene said. "For me to try to gather and get to a comfort level of where I think that our department should be long-term and working in concert with our president and members of our board of trustees, there's a lot of back-and-forth that goes on to make sure that we're all on the same page.
"There needs to be some collaborative efforts and those things take a lot more time. I think that that's part of what the frustration I think is of the fans, if there's frustration of the delay. There's lots of coordination that has to occur. We want to make sure that we do things that's right for Auburn and sometimes that takes some extra dialogue."
James Crepea is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @JamesCrepea.
from Auburn Sports Impact http://www.al.com/auburnbasketball/index.ssf/2018/06/auburn_ad_chad_prewett_steven_pearl_absolutely_returning.html
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