Bruce Pearl Uses Final Four Spotlight For American Hostage Edan Alexander: ‘Nobody Knows His Name’

Coach Bruce Pearl says he’s using the spotlight of the Auburn Tigers Final Four run to draw attention to the last American hostage believed to be alive in Hamas captivity.

“It just bothers me tremendously that people are gonna pay attention to a basketball coach winning a basketball game when we have an American held hostage in Gaza, named Edan Alexander, and nobody knows his name,” Pearl told The Daily Wire.

Pearl, who has been wearing a “Bring Them Home” dog-tag as a necklace, opened a press conference viewed by millions after Auburn’s victory over Creighton earlier this month by drawing attention to 21-year-old Alexander. 

“I just felt compelled to say his name when I knew everybody was listening and have the discussion,” Pearl said.

Edan was born in Rockville, Maryland, before moving to New Jersey. He joined the Israeli Defense Forces after high school and was taken captive during Hamas’s October 7 massacre while at a small outpost by Kibbutz Nir Oz. He has been seen in Hamas propaganda videos.

Pearl said that he hopes President Donald Trump is close to crafting a deal that will bring home the remaining 59 hostages in Hamas captivity. 

Following the remarks, Pearl was connected to Alexander’s father, Adi, and learned that his other son, Roy, was a basketball fan.

“He called me and told me just how much it meant to him,” Pearl recalled. “I said ‘I’d just love to meet you, I don’t know what else I can do for you.’”

Pearl said he decided to bring him to a basketball game that weekend in Atlanta, and invited the  wholefamily as his guests.

“I just wanted to spend time with him and just to let him know that, that, that they’re not alone,” Pearl said. “There are so many, so many people, including so many American Jews that are praying for him and his family to bring his son home.”

Despite having a different religion from the majority of his athletes, Pearl said they all connect over being children of Abraham and talk about God “every single day.”

“Most of my student athletes are Christian and I’m a coach, so my job is to bring people together—that’s what I do, and religion, unfortunately, sometimes has found ways to separate people to create division and divide,” Pearl said, adding that he prefers finding common ground.

Pearl said that his success and the success of two of the other coaches in the final four who are Jewish is proof that America is the “greatest country in the world where there is opportunity for everybody.”

“I tell my players, about 95% of whom are African American, is, yes, there are absolutely obstacles to success and yes, there are obstacles to success being Jewish. There are obstacles to success being African American, but there are not road blocks,” Pearl said. “ I don’t want to hear that. You can’t do it because of this or because of that. I don’t want to hear it.”

“It can be done and Todd Golden and John Scheyer and Bruce Pearl are great examples of what can be done,” Pearl said, referencing the other two Jewish head coaches in the Final Four. 

Pearl credited his team’s success to God.

“The only way I can explain it, is it’s a God thing, like God’s got his hand all over this and why me and why us? God reminds me all the time who I am, where I came from, and my love of my country and my love of my faith and my ancestral homeland, Israel, means as much to me as, as life itself,” Pearl said. “I’ve been in this work for a long, long time, but it’s just that maybe more people are noticing now because we’ve had some more success.”

Looking forward to the upcoming games, Pearl said his team will have to play the best two games of the season in order to win the national championship. 

“I’m so proud of our guys,” Pearl said. “We will have to play the two best games of the year against Florida and the winner of the Houston-Duke game if we’re gonna be crowned national champion, but there’s only four teams left in the country that are still playing for the National Championship, and Auburn is one of them.”