The Auburn Tigers have been the class of college basketball this season. After steamrolling the best conference in the country, they are the overwhelming favorite to take the top overall seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. A lot of their successes are related to their ability to recruit the state of Georgia at an elite level.
The head coach of the Tigers joined The Steakhouse to discuss the talent-rich state of Georgia and how it has helped fuel the success of his program.
"We have seven guys in the NBA from Atlanta in Auburn in the last eight years. It's unbelievable," Bruce Pearl said about recruiting Georgia. "High school basketball, you can't sleep on it in Atlanta. It's the best."
States like Texas, Florida, and California have plenty of talent in their own right, but the Peach State is absolutely loaded with talent on an annual basis. There are several top-end players and several four- and five-star players -- but they aren't going to Georgia and Georgia Tech.
Since 2019, the Tigers have poached double the amount of blue-chip players (according to 24/7 Sports) that Georgia has, and they triple the output of the Yellow Jackets. In the same period, there have been 11 different five-star players from Georgia but only one (Anthony Edwards) has opted to stay home.
Although there has been an uptick in recruiting for the pair of Georgia schools in recent years, it is no surprise that Auburn is finding success as the top-ranked team in America right now.
"There's definitely been a trickle-down theory," Pearl said about recruiting Georgia hard. "Iron sharpens iron, and all those things."