{"id":162111,"date":"2026-03-13T03:48:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/162111\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T03:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:48:38","slug":"queens-head-coach-ryan-leonard-trolls-auburn-bruce-pearl-after-yelling-at-refs-from-stands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/162111\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens head coach Ryan Leonard trolls Auburn, Bruce Pearl after yelling at refs from stands"},"content":{"rendered":"

The back-and-forth between Auburn<\/a> and Queens continued on Thursday night. Royals head coach Ryan Leonard took the latest one, this time going after Bruce Pearl<\/a>. Somebody captured a moment at the SEC Tournament on Thursday where Pearl was upset with officiating. A few screams came from the stands directly behind the Auburn bench.<\/p>\n

Leonard took to social media when the video was posted to X. He joked Pearl was actually upset at him for making a comment about an Auburn assistant coach. Of course, he is referring to an Auburn staff showing up to a Queens game to effectively scout one of their players before the NCAA transfer portal<\/a> opened.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was mad at me, I said something about assistants not being focused on the current game,\u201d Leonard said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Auburn and Queens faced each other just after the Christmas break on Dec. 29. To no surprise, the Tigers got an easy win at home thanks to a monster first half, 106-65 being the final. Four different Auburn players finished in double-figures, as Elijah Freeman<\/a> led the way with 27 points. Kevin Overton<\/a> was not too far behind due to 23 of his own.<\/p>\n

Now, just around three months later, there is beef between the two. Originally, Leonard called out an unnamed SEC assistant for attending a game of theirs. Eventually, word came out that Auburn was the program behind the operation. Steven Pearl later defended the move, saying, \u201cIt is a permissible activity\u201d in a text message to The Athletic.<\/p>\n

Everything kicked off because of a tweet Leonard sent out on Wednesday. \u201cWe had an SEC assistant buy a courtside seat for one of our conference tournament games to \u2018get ahead\u2019 of recruiting (one) of my kids,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Leonard is clearly frustrated by the situation. But at least he can throw a joke or two in there.<\/p>\n

Queens will hear their name called on Selection Sunday. The ASUN crowned the Royals conference tournament champions on Friday, meaning they will be the automatic bid. This comes after a record of 13-5 during ASUN play, finishing third during the regular season. An NCAA Tournament bid in the program\u2019s fourth year at the Division I level is a major accomplishment.<\/p>\n

Auburn will be sweating a little bit more than their December opponents. Losing at the SEC Tournament on Thursday to Tennessee, plus some bid-stealers across the country, might wind up costing them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The back-and-forth between Auburn and Queens continued on Thursday night. Royals head coach Ryan Leonard took the latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-162111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}