back in the Sweet 16 Bruce Pearl has Auburn

The Tigers dominated  Kansas on Saturday for their 10th consecutive win and the coach's first trip to the Sweet 16  in nine years.

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It wasn't too long ago that Bruce Pearl was stocking shelves for a wholesale distributor. He took a job with the H.T. Hackney Co. three months after being fired amid mounting scandal from the University of Tennessee in May 2011 and remained there for three years, working seven days a week, grinding away like he would as the head coach for a major college basketball program.

On Wednesday, the day before leading his Auburn Tigers back into the NCAA tournament, Pearl talked about being "a little older, a little wiser, maybe a little bit more patient, maybe a little bit more grateful" ever since. He shared what one of his daughters told him during that tumultuous time in his life.

Pearl led Auburn -- the school that hired him while he was still under show-cause penalty in the spring of 2014 -- back into the Sweet 16 with an 89-75 domination of Kansas on Saturday night, punctuating his distinctive return to prominence. It was Auburn's 10th consecutive victory since a defining loss to Kentucky in late February, and it marked the program's first trip to the regional semifinals since 2003, when Marquis Daniels led the way.