After being relatively silent regarding Bruce Pearl's leadership of Auburn's basketball program for several months during its historic season, Auburn University president Steven Leath issued a second round of public support for the coach in a week.

During an interview with Auburn's in-house staff, Leath addressed athletic director Allen Greene's recent comments supporting Pearl as well as the Tigers coach.

"Allen is a talented, bright guy and he's fully capable of managing athletics in general and specifically the basketball situation, that's why I hired him," Leath said during the in-house podcast interview. "I'm supportive of the way he's handling things. Allen and I both feel the same, that Bruce Pearl did a remarkable job this year with a lot of distractions, a lot of road blocks set in the way of him and his players. It was really fun to watch what those young men and their coaches achieved.

"Now I think coach Pearl, me, Allen know there's some necessary, appropriate processes we've got to go through to get to the other side of this. And it's not just Auburn, it's college basketball in general. And Allen is sensitive to the fact, as am I, that college basketball is not in the best place in could be or should be. The NCAA knows that too. So, this is a complicated time to have the situation we have at Auburn, but I feel strongly that Allen's the right guy to lead us through this and work with coach Pearl regularly to make sure that we've got a program with high integrity and that's what we really want at Auburn. We want to win, don't misinterpret that. I'm a very competitive guy; I want to win. But I want to win in a way that makes us proud and with honor and integrity and I truly believe that can be accomplished here at Auburn and Allen's the right guy to get us there."

Leath's remarks on Wednesday come a week after he issued a statement expressing similar support for Greene, who earlier on March 28 stated his plan was "absolutely" to retain Pearl next season.

Pearl has not spoken publicly about the recent comments from Greene and Leath, but after Auburn's season ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Pearl maintained he wanted to remain at Auburn and believed he would.

The NCAA is still reviewing Auburn's basketball program and reportedly over 30 others as a result of last fall's FBI investigation that resulted in 10 arrests, including then-Auburn assistant coach Chuck Person, who allegedly receiving $93,500 in bribes from a federal cooperating witness to use his influence to steer Auburn basketball players to retain the services of a financial advisor and custom suit maker when they became professionals.

Person, who is facing six federal charges, and co-defendant Rashan Michel have each filed motions to dismiss the indictment against them and the case is scheduled for trial in Feb. 2019.

Pearl has two years remaining on his contract at $2.675 million and $2.775 million each year, respectively, before bonuses. He is 70-62 overall and 29-43 in SEC play in four seasons at Auburn, which won a share of the SEC regular-season championship for the first time since 1999 and went to its first NCAA Tournament since 2003 this season.

James Crepea is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @JamesCrepea.