If only Bruce Pearl had been honest

Bruce Pearl is going to get a three-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA.

That's according to ESPN.com's Andy Katz (it should become official this afternoon), who also said that his assistants -- Tony Jones, Steve Forbes and Jason Shay -- will receive one year show-cause penalties. (A show-cause penalty means that any NCAA program that wants to hire one of those coaches must present a case to the Committee on Infractions as to why, and is liable receive additional punishments from the NCAA for making the hire.) In addition, Chris Low was cited in Katz's article as reporting that the NCAA will not levy any further penalties against the Tennessee program than what they already self-imposed -- two years probation and a handful of slap-on-the-wrist recruiting restrictions.

None of that is really much of a surprise.


We all knew that Bruce Pearl was likely going to receive a show-cause penalty and that his assistants were probably headed down that road as well. We all knew that Pearl's career as a college coach would, at worst, be over and, at best, be a shell of what it once was -- a high-major coach slowly turning around a dormant program.

So what does all this mean?

Don't lie to the NCAA.

Seriously.

Just don't do it.

When they come a-knockin', just be honest.

Because the actual violation that Bruce Pearl got busted for was not all that serious. He had illegal contact with a couple of recruits, inviting them to his house for a barbecue when they weren't allowed to be at his house, barbecue or not. What got him in trouble was lying to the NCAA about recognizing where a picture from that barbecue was taken. I know, I know, its a bit more complicated than that -- not only to he get his coaching staff to cover for him, he tried to convince the recruit's parents to do the same, hence the "misleading an investigation" charge -- but the bottom-line is that the cover-up is what killed Pearl's career. Not the violation.

He went from a beloved head coaching making seven figures to an NCAA pariah. Its fairly likely he'll never return to the college coaching ranks. He'll probably never again reach the level he did at Tennessee.

Todd Bozeman was a star-in-the-making as the head coach of Cal back in the 90's, but he received an eight-year show-cause penalty for paying Jelani Gardner's family upwards of $30,000. Bozeman is back in coaching, but despite having built Morgan State into a low-major powerhouse -- bringing them to two NCAA Tournaments in his five years at the helm -- his name is never brought up when a better coaching position comes open.

Pearl isn't exactly going to be living on the streets. Presumably, he hasn't blown all the money he's made in his career. And he has a standing, $500,000 offer from the Texas Legends of the D-League. The guy can coach, and there's no reason he can't follow Kelvin Sampson's footsteps from show-cause penalty to the NBA.

Things could be much, much worse for Pearl. The NCAA scrap heap is nothing when compared to the battle his former counterpart Pat Summitt is currently facing.

But if he had just come clean to the NCAA's investigator's, Pearl would still be Knoxville's hoops king.
Continue reading...

Wanna know how Bruce Pearl lost his job?

Thanks to some terrific reporting from Andrew Gribble of Go Vols Xtra, you can now read through, step by step, the process with which the NCAA took down Bruce Pearl and his coaching staff at Tennessee.

First, there were the lies to the NCAA's enforcement staff. Reading through, Pearl not only lied to the NCAA but, after having the line of questioning stopped by his attorney, was given a second chance to clear the air. He maintained the lie and, as Gribble puts it, that was the beginning of the end of his tenure at Tennessee.

Also worth reading is the breakdown of the "bump", the "incidental" contact between Jordan Adams and Bruce Pearl at a practice at Oak Hill Academy. Adams initially said the conversation last upwards of three minutes, which is almost certainly an NCAA violation.

Recapping the articles anymore in this space wouldn't do justice to the work that Gribble put in. So click the links and read through. Its interesting to see how a major college coach gets taken down.
Continue reading...

Bruce Pearl is optimistic about his future

Bruce Pearl thinks he'll get a chance to coach again, and he's probably right.

If you don't remember, Pearl was fired from his post as the head coach at Tennessee for a myriad of wrongdoings. The biggest issue, however, was lying to the NCAA about a picture taken with Aaron Craft, then a point guard recruit who is currently playing for Ohio State, at Pearl's home at a time that Craft was not allowed to be at Pearl's home. Throw in some other bogus behavior -- including a recruiting violation just days after his original punishment was handed down back in September -- and the Vols had no choice but to get rid of him.

And now, Pearl is finally giving interviews. He spoke with 790 the Zone in Atlanta in his first interview since he got the axe.


"I do think that I'm going to have the opportunity to coach again," Pearl told the radio station. "I've got to wait and see what the Committee on Infractions, what they say, probably coming up sometime in the middle of August and how quickly will they allow me to come back into coaching. That's going to go a long way towards whether or not I do coach again."

"Do you want me to write the book about how do you lose $10 million jobs? I can write the book. How can you be so dumb and so careless? ... It's not so much about what we did, it's about how we handled it."

"I think there was some decisions that we made. Specifically, in my visit with the enforcement staff. I answered about 150 questions. I answered 148 of them honestly. There were two questions that I did not answer honestly. Had I answered those two questions knowingly, willingly, honestly, instead of a week later asking them to come back because I knew I had made a mistake ... you guys would be interviewing the coach at Tennessee."

I'd be willing to bet a decently large sum of money that Bruce Pearl will one day coach college basketball again.

Most people in charge of hiring college basketball coaches don't exactly care about what you have done, they care about what you can do for them. And at every level, Pearl's proven to be a winner. He won at D-II Southern Indiana, he won at UW-Milwaukee, and he won at Tennessee, a place where basketball success is far from a given.

And what did Pearl in -- what has him heading in front of the Committee on Infractions -- isn't necessarily what he did. He had illegal contact with recruits, inviting them to his house for a BBQ when the rules stipulated that they weren't allowed to be there. That's, without a doubt, an offense you can recover from. His attempt to cover it up -- his lies to the NCAA and to the fans -- is what got him in trouble. Its like being a parent; you can get over the dumb stuff your kid does while growing up, but lying to keep themselves out of trouble is what gets them grounded during the summertime.

Pearl is a bit of a polarizing figure. Fans in Tennessee love him. Some of the media members that cover him feel differently. But the bottom line is that he wins games.

So did Todd Bozeman. He got an eight-year show-cause penalty after admitting to paying the family of Jelani Gardner $30,000. He's currently the head coach at Morgan State. Tim Floyd allegedly put thousands of dollars into the pocket of OJ Mayo's handlers and played a role in bringing down the USC basketball program. He's currently the head coach at UTEP. Eddie Sutton went on to finish his career at Oklahoma State after nearly bringing down the Kentucky basketball program in the late 80's. Hell, even Kelvin Sampson, whose excessive phone calls at Oklahoma and Indiana got him a five-year show-cause penalty, is coaching in the NBA right now.

People care about whether or not you can win them basketball games, and Pearl can flat out coach.

He'll get another job if he wants one. Its only a matter of time.
Continue reading...

Martin's contract will protect him from Pearl's wrong-doings

(Ed. Note: Due to technical maintenance to Blogger's user interface, we have been unable to publish any posts for the last 24 hours. This post should have been published on Thursday afternoon. Thank you for your patience)

Part of the reason that many folks were surprised that Tennessee was able to move so quickly on getting a new head coach was that the job vacated by Bruce Pearl was a tarnished one.

In other words, with the NCAA breathing down the Vols' neck thanks to Bruce Pearl's inability to comply with NCAA rules, coaching Tennessee was like dating someone on active military duty. Things may be going great for a while, but in the back of your mind you always know that they are, eventually, going to get called into action. On the surface, Tennessee looks like a very good job for Martin. But those NCAA sanctions are coming eventually.

So in order to land Cuonzo Martin, Tennessee had to add some extra incentives into his contract:

If, as a result of currently pending NCAA proceedings, the men's basketball program (a) receives NCAA restrictions on recruiting in addition to those already self-imposed by the University; (b) banned from postseason play; or (c) incurs a reduction of one or more scholarships, then the initial term of employment will be extended year-for-year based upon the number of years the University (a) receives NCAA restrictions on recruiting in addition to those already self-imposed by the University; (b) banned from postseason play; or (c) incurs a reduction of one or more scholarships. In the event that any additional year(s) are added, the terms applicable to those additional year(s) will be the same as in year five.

For those not as well-versed in legalese, essentially what this is saying is that if the NCAA hands down anymore sanctions, than Martin will have his contract automatically extended a year for each year that the program is restricted. Lose a scholarship for the 2011-2012 and the 2012-2013 seasons, and Martin will have his contract (worth $1.3 million annually) extended from five to seven seasons.

The link above is to the Knoxville News-Sentinel site, which provides a full breakdown of Martin's contract with UT.

Continue reading...

10 Things I won't miss about the 2010-2011 Season

The 2010-2011 is long gone, and there is no getting it back. We now have to wait roughly 175 days until sanctioned college basketball begins again. Some of us will fill the void it by projecting next season's field of 68 or the top recruits in the class of 2013. But for us, at least at the current moment, it's high time we start reflecting on what made the past season both special and frustrating.

First up, the top-ten things that we won't miss about the 2010-20112 season. We laud college basketball as the greatest sport on the planet, which it most certainly is. But that doesn't mean it doesn't come with baggage. In order to get the good, you have to deal with some of the bad that goes along with it.

Now, some of these things may return next season, but the next few months will provide some sanctity for our tortured ears and eyes.

The Top 10 Things I Won't Miss About the 2010-2011 Season:

10. The Kansas State Catastrophe

With every day that passed, a new issue arose in "The Little Apple".

Let's see, where to begin.

Well, before the season even began, Dominique Sutton decided to transfer.

But things really went south once the season actually started. (Try to follow along, there's about to be a lot of news thrown at you)

Curtis Kelly was benched early in the season for not living up to the program's standards, then was suspended for receiving illegal benefits, a.k.a he got free swag from a clothing store. Even after those two incidents, he reportedly violated the school's student-athlete honor code. You really have to make an effort to get in trouble that much.

Wally Judge sat out due to personal problems for a few games then sparked controversy for his in-game salute to the Pinstripe Bowl controversy. FIU-transfer Freddy Asprilla left the program, reportedly because he couldn't "handle it". First it was reported that he was going to play pro ball in Europe in order to raise money for his ill mother. Then it was reported that he would be transferring to Canisius.

Jacob Pullen lashed out at fans on twitter, said he wouldn't play in the N.I.T. and was also suspended for receiving illegal benefits. When you add in Frank Martin's ever-colorful demeanor both on and off the court, the Wildcats were almost always in the news. It was good to see K-State turn things around at the end of the season, because we respect Jacob Pullen far too much to wish any of that upon him.

But seriously, that's just way too much news on one team for us to cover.


9. Wiz Khalifa/YouTube Remixes

Who doesn't love hip-hop? If you love hip-hop, like us, then you probably love remixes. I mean, who doesn't?

Wiz Khalifa absolutely blew up in late 2010/early 2011, in large part to his single "Black and Yellow". Listen, I really liked the song, and I still think it's good, even after the unnecessary radio overkill.

But what really tested my limits was the endless, countless college remixes in which some "budding" artist (and I use that term loosely) replaced "Black and Yellow" with the colors of his school. A few of the remixes weren't THAT bad, but some of them were flat-out dreadful.

Listen, if your school colors don't rhyme with "Black and Yellow", you shouldn't make a remix of the song.

End of Story.

Here are some of the examples of people who didn't get the memo.

(The following list is just a small sample size. There are plenty of more out there. But I couldn't bring myself to listening to one remix an infinite number of times)
Alabama - White and Crimson
Central Florida - Black and Gold
Georgetown - Blue and Gray
Kansas - Red and Blue KU
Oklahoma - Boomer Sooner
South Carolina - Black and Garnet
Syracuse - Orange and White
Tennessee - Orange White
UConn - Kemba Walker
VCU - Black and Gold, Black and Yellow

There were a few exceptions to this rule. But it just so happens that these exceptions didn't use Wiz Khalifa's song. Indiana student's put together a solid one, made all the better by featuring some rather attractive co-eds. The Gaels of St. Mary's were repp'd well by "Gaels Gone Wild" which featured a pretty solid beat and a well-produced music video.

Again, these were more "exception" than they were "rules".

This Duke rap however, was no exception. It's awful, and it's not even a Wiz Khalifa remix.

Listen, I'm all for fan-creativity. But a line needs to be drawn. You need to know when enough is enough.

If "Black and Yellow" is still catchy in 2012, or if crappy remixes are still being made, I may have to double-Van Gogh myself.


8. RCN not getting the Big-Ten Network

The B.I.A.H HQ is fully equipped with what-we-were-made-to-believe is the most comprehensive sport-package available from RCN, our trusty television service providers.

It's true, we don't get The Mountain, and we only get a limited number of FSN-West games, but with the innovations in pirated Internet streaming, adjustments for the most part could be made. That is, of course, with the exception of the Big-Ten Network.

All the Google searching in the world couldn't help us find a good stream of the Big-Ten Network, and RCN was not able to help us with explaining why we didn't get The BTN and how we could get it. Now with 374 teams in D-1 hoops, there were almost always a game or two on TV, and with ESPN3 and online streaming, we could almost always watch the games we wanted to see.

At this point, you are probably wondering, "Why do you care if you don't get The BTN?"

I have but one simple answer: GUS JOHNSON.

Sure, Gus-Jeezy is on CBS every week or so after the NFL season concludes. But you have to understand our frustration if the man is providing the public with the sounds of his golden pipes on a weekly basis and we aren't able to listen to him do so. I mean, we did fine with limited coverage of the Big-Ten Network, but everybody could use more Gus Johnson in their daily lives. I know I could.

Do you know how many times I had to listen to Steve Lappas and Sean Farnham? More than I ever cared too. You know how many times I listened to Gus-Jeezy? Not nearly enough. So, RCN, it's your move. Time to step your game up for next season.


7. Bruce Pearl's lack of decision-making skills

Have you ever watched somebody from afar try to pick their nose and eat what they find?

They look around to see if anybody is watching, dig in, pause, look around again, double check, and sneak in the nasal treat, all while you are watching, going "Ahh man, no, don't do it" and "Oh man, he's totally going to do it.....ewwww".

That's kinda like how I will remember Bruce Pearl's final 14 months at Tennessee. He broke a rule, which is fine I guess, everybody isn't perfect. You can't look at me with a straight face and say you have never picked your nose. You'd be lying if you did. But instead of just admitting he was wrong, or flicking the booger away, he decided to see if he could get away with it. But once you do something for the first time, and like it, you are bound to do it again, and that's what Pearl did.

He didn't just break one rule, he broke numerous rules. You know the NCAA was sitting there knowing what he was doing, and just waiting for him to either come clean or continue to dig at his nose. And that's just what he did.

Even in as late as March, Pearl committed an NCAA violation, and it eventually cost him his job.

I know this analogy has been pretty bizarre but hopefully you get the idea.

I will miss Pearl's bravado, but I won't miss his lack of judgement.


6. Twitter Misuse

If it was not for my involvement in sports media, I would never EVER use twitter.

I believe it is a valuable resource for people in marketing, promotions, and public relations. But unfortunately, twitter is over-run by classless fans, athletes who can't spell, people who try to communicate with celebrities and college students who are unaware of twitter's functionality.

Sure, I guess twitter can be used to express your opinions, feelings and frustrations. But it seems like a majority of the D-I college basketball players are unaware that when they tweet something, it's likely to be re-tweeted by thousands of people. Every tweet they send out is eventually seen by TV analysts, national writers, head coaches, and athletic directors.

I'm aware that twitter only provides 140 characters for each thought. But would it kill you to use correct spelling? Oh and by the way, don't try to pull this "my account got hacked" stunt. That doesn't happen. Even if it does, how come people's accounts only get hacked when they say something controversial?

But the athletes are not the only ones to blame. Have you ever seen some of the things people have tweeted at Kyrie Irving, Isaiah Thomas or Terrence Jones? I understand that fans get frustrated. Hell, I do. But I also realize that these athletes are kids working their asses off to represent their school.

Twitter isn't going anywhere, and we will likely see the same type of shenanigans next season. But hopefully fans and players decide to ease up during the off-season.

Do it for the sake of my sanity.


5. JimmerMania

Don't get me wrong, I love watching Fredette play. Every time he brought the ball over half court, I would urge him through my TV to "make it rain" from 40 feet. The kid is polite, full of swagger and has a nice, attractive Mormon girlfriend.

But I liked Jimmer when he was our little secret. I liked it when only the basketball media would drool over his circus shots and his Mormon-moxie. I liked it when "You Got Jimmer'd" was in it's infancy, before he became a regular on every "talking heads" sports show across the country.

I guess I'm taking the indy-hipster-emo-jam band music approach. You know, like when an unknown band that you love suddenly blows up and becomes famous. Once the band becomes mainstream, the longtime supporters decide the music isn't good anymore.

Well, I don't think Jimmer "sold out", but I certainly could have done without the music videos, parodies, and letters to the editor.

For us uncoordinated, unathletic white kids, Jimmer was our hero, our cult-icon. But then the media had to go all ga-ga over him and ruin the special bond we had.

While I will miss watching Fredette launch shots from the souvenir booth, I won't miss the mass hysteria that he produced.


4. Renardo Sidney

There aren't many things more compelling than watching two guys try to punch each other unconscious.

I love fights: schoolyard fights, locker room brawls, donnybrooks, melees, bench-clearing brawls, cages fights, slobber-knockers, street fights, cat fights, pretty much all fights with the exception of boxing matches.

But despite all of this, I found the Renardo Sidney vs. Elgin Bailey bleacher brawl to be somewhat un-nerving.

This wasn't Sidney's first mistake, and while he wasn't the instigator of the fight, he should have known better. Up until December 24th, 2010, Sidney had played in a grand total of two college games. Yet I was forced to read and hear about his attitude problems, weight issues and NCAA violations.

Once he actually started to play, he showed actually showed some signs of promise. He even proved some doubters wrong by deciding to return to Starkville for his junior year.

But for all the buzz around this kid, nothing he accomplished last season made up for the fact that he was the biggest headache in college basketball for a good 12 months.

Seriously, I've never met the guy, and I already hate him.



3. Rule 9, Article 13, Sections 1-3

The elbow rule. Hands-down the most stupid thing done to college basketball since, well, ever.

Coaches and camp counsellors have been teaching rebounding fundamentals since the beginning of time. You can't just decide to implement a rule that would change the way basketball is played right before the season starts. Rules like this need implementation, regulation and most importantly, education. All we got was a graphic during Marathon-Madness and some re-hashing during in-studio halftime reports.

I understand that it was a safety concern, but again, swinging your elbows to clear out space has been part of the game for so long, it's hard to tell gifted athletes to just stop doing what they are doing.

Even if they had decided to make it a rule, which they did, why make it a "flagrant two with possession"? The rebounder is only doing what he has been taught over and over and over again. If anything, the NCAA should just fine players for flagrant contact (Oh wait, I forgot, players don't get paid).

I hope to God the NCAA does some serious thinking during the off-season. This rule needs to go back to whatever dark crevice it came from and should stay there for all eternity.


2. UPS Logistics Commercial

Companies use many advertising tactics in order to make their commercials and marketing campaigns stick. Fresh slogans, celebrity endorsements, even catchy jingles. Some work, others don't.

UPS clearly forgot to schedule any focus groups and must have ignored all feedback and viewer response, because the "logistics commercial" they marched out for the 2010-2011 season had the most annoying, brain-numbing jingle I havee ever listened too.

I never liked the song "That's Amore". So why on Earth would I enjoy that same tune describing the benefits of logistics?



I don't know a god-damn thing about logistics. I've been made to believe that it has something to do with making sure small businesses save money on shipping and handling fees.

Even the overly-repetitive "NAPA know-how" commercial seemed pleasant compared to the "logistics commercial". I know we weren't the only ones who frequently used ESPN3.com and their wonderful replay streams of college basketball games. But did ESPN3 really have to choose the "logistics commercial" as the only advertisement to use over-and-over again?

It got so bad that @ballinisahabit quickly muted his computer or television every time this disaster-of-a-jingle would come on. If you every wanted to add just a bit of misery into his day, tweeting a link of the commercial to @ballinisahabit would do the trick.


1. Jimmy's Jet

Not every production idea or programming segment is a hit, I get that. For every "Pardon the Interruption" there is a "Steve A. Smith Show".

But the "Jimmy's Jet" segment during ESPN-televised games was by far the worst in-game segment I have ever seen, bar-none.

Did not a single programming director realize how corny it was? Did nobody ever wonder to ask if people enjoyed it? How many executives OK'd this idea? I really feel like somebody should have been fired for allowing this to run week after week after week.

True, it was only a 30-60sec segment, but man, those seconds were rather brutal. Just give me a standard-issue Bubble Watch. I don't need aww-shucks-Jimmy Dykes using airplane analogies and foolish graphics to tell me who is on the bubble and who isn't.

I would have paid to see a camera-shot of Brad Nessler's reaction during those segments.

Jimmy Dykes is OK at his job (although if you check any SEC message board, you will realize many fans don't share my sentiments). His southern accent gets on my nerves sometimes, and sure, he has an over-abundance of unnecessary catch-phrases, but ussually he does adequate work.

But this "Jimmy's Jet" thing has to go.

Take it from me, the broadcast production major still toiling in the Internet ranks, "Jimmy's Jet" doesn't work. It never worked, and if I see it again, I may have to do something drastic.

Somebody call Amilia Earhardt, we have another mission for her.


Continue reading...

Once again, the injustice of the Letter of Intent comes to light

If you haven't yet been convinced that signing a National Letter of Intent is the wrong course of action for a high school recruit, Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton provides you with yet another piece of evidence of the NLI program's worthlessness.

As you no doubt know, Bruce Pearl has been fired as Tennessee's basketball coach. The two players that he signed in the Class of 2011 -- Chris Jones and Kevin Ware, both top 100 guards -- have requested to receive a release from their Letters of Intent.

And to both, the answer Hamilton gave was essentially the same -- wait it out, and see what you think of the new coach we hire.

In all honesty, there is nothing wrong with this approach. In fact, if it was my kid in this situation, I would probably give him the same advice.


I'm not a fool. I know that at this level of basketball, you sign with the coach, not the school. You sign because you like their offensive style of play, not their english department. You pick a coach based on how he develops players at your position, not whether the school can get you a position on Wall Street or with a prestigious law firm.

But it is late March already. Both Jones and Ware signed with Tennessee back in November. The late signing period is in mid-to-late May. While the players may have signed on with Pearl, there had to be something else -- something about the University of Tennessee or the town of Knoxville or their future teammates -- that Jones and Ware enjoyed. If there was nothing to like about a school beyond the basketball coach, is that really going to be the place that a 17 year old high school senior decides he wants to spend the next 1-4 years of his life?

So, yes, I would tell my son or daughter that they should give Tennessee's new head coach a chance.

But I would also tell them that they need to start thinking about a back up plan.

And therein lies the problem.

If Jones and Ware are not released from their NLI, they cannot explore other options. They cannot begin to build a contingency plan should Hamilton opt to hire a coach that either Jones or Ware does not like. As of today, there are less than two months left for these two kids to make a decision about college, and that time frame is only going to get shorter.

To make matters more complicated, coaching searches are not easy. Coaching searches where a school's expectations for their next coach vastly overestimates the position's can be downright impossible, to the point that it is almost painful to follow. Look at Oregon last season. They tried to woo everyone from Brad Stevens to Tom Izzo, Jamie Dixon to Mark Turgeon.

And based on the list of targets floated by Tennessee, they may face the same problems finding a new head coach. There is nothing wrong with swinging for the fences as long as you understand that strikeouts come with the territory.

Oregon struck out so often that it took them 37 days to find a new head coach.

37 days from now is April 30th, which means that if the Tennessee coaching search is anything like the Oregon coaching search, Jones and Ware will have less than three weeks to decide whether or not they like the new coach that Hamilton hires. If the answer is no, that means the two high school seniors will have a couple of weeks to find a new school that a) they want to attend, b) has scholarships available, and c) is a good fit for their personality, skill set, and position.

I don't want to see that. I don't want to see a kid forced into a situation in college he's not comfortable with. And I would hope that Tennessee fans would agree with me.

I don't think it will come to that. Maybe I'm too trusting in the goodwill of humanity, but I think that both Jones and Ware will, if they still desire, be released from their NLI. Because that's the way it generally works with a coaching change. The folks that are left will try to convince you to stay, but if their best sales pitch still falls on deaf ears, they let you go.

The problem?

All the power lies in the school's hands.

The University of Tennessee should not be able to wield this much control over the future of two recruits. If Mike Hamilton wanted too, he could refuse to release Jones and Ware from the NLI's, which would force them to sit out a season and lose a year's worth of eligibility if they didn't attend Tennessee. That is precisely what happened to Joseph Young, who signed with Providence but decided that he wanted to go to Houston, this year.

And while the school can prevent a recruit from attending somewhere else without punishment, they can also cut the player loose without punishment. Look at the plight of DJ Newbill from last season. He signed an NLI with Marquette, but once Jamil Wilson made it clear that he wanted to transfer out of Oregon and to Marquette, the former top 100 recruit needed a scholarship. And it was Newbill that was on the chopping block. He landed on his feet at Southern Mississippi, but Newbill is a Philly kid. I doubt playing in Conference USA is the same as playing in the Big East.

NLI's hold no benefit to the players, but precious few players realize this.

They are contractually binding agreements that put the power in the school's hands.

And you don't have to sign them.

Ask Brandon Knight. He signed a financial aid agreement, which forced Kentucky to commit to him while still allowing Knight to be able to leave should unforeseen circumstances arise.

Maybe one day this blog will have enough influence to convince every high school hooper to follow Knight's lead.
Continue reading...

UPDATED: Bruce Pearl out at Tennessee

According to Jeff Goodman -- and everyone else that knows these kind of things -- Bruce Pearl has been told by Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton that he has been fired. An announcement is expected this afternoon. Pearl will receive a buy out from the University.

This decision ends what has been a six month soap opera. It began back in September when Pearl admitted lying to the NCAA's investigators about a recruiting violation involving now-Ohio State point guard Aaron Craft. Pearl was fined over $1 million by the University already and missed eight SEC games this season.

The question now is who will replace Pearl?

Shaka Smart is a good candidate. Chris Mooney will probably be on everyone's wish list. I'm sure that Brad Stevens' run to the Sweet 16 has only made him even more of a high-major crush. Even Buzz Williams is bound to attract plenty of attention.

The problem? Tennessee is not a very good job right now. They have the NCAA bearing down, their AD could very well be on the way out the door right behind Pearl, they don't have a natural recruiting base, and next year's team will likely be without Scotty Hopson and Tobias Harris.

That's not an ideal job.

This post will be updated when an official announcement comes down.

UPDATE

Its official. Pearl is gone.

There isn't much in the statement made by Mike Hamilton that we don't already know, but they do mention a recruiting violation that was committed in March of 2011 which is, well, this month. No wonder he was shown the exit.

There are two things I am anxiously waiting for in this story. The first is what that March recruiting violation was. I wonder if it led to the change in attitude that the University has in regards to Pearl? (UPDATE: According to this report from ESPN -- which cites sources from Chris Low, who has connections all over Knoxville -- the violation that Pearl committed in March was procedural in nature and involved tickets the Vols gave out to their March 6th game against Kentucky. It also says that the non-NCAA related incident cited involved a substance-abuse policy violation by Brian Williams.)

The second is who actually sent the photo of Craft and Pearl to the NCAA? The word is that the photo showed up in an unmarked envelope, but I can't be the only that believes the NCAA knows who sent it.

The one thing that bothers me? Bruce Pearl gets slightly less than $1 million from the University as a settlement. His assistants, who got paid significantly less than Pearl did, only get four months worth of salary despite losing their jobs because their boss lied.

Here's the statement from AD Mike Hamilton:

"Today, we are announcing that we have reached an agreement with Bruce Pearl that will result in him and his immediate staff being relieved of their duties with the University of Tennessee men’s basketball program. This is a difficult day for many obvious reasons.

Six years ago, Bruce Pearl arrived on our campus and renewed hope in Tennessee Basketball. He, his staff, and our student-athletes have allowed us as administrators and fans to enjoy unprecedented success and many victories during that time. He has become a friend to many and has done tremendous work in our community.

Upon receipt of our NCAA Letter of Inquiry in September, we made the difficult decision to forego common national opinion and forge ahead with Bruce and his staff pending any further major infractions or issues that would preclude our basketball program from representing the University of Tennessee in the right manner.

The months that followed have been difficult on everyone – our staff, our coaches, our administration, our fans and, certainly, our young men. During this time, the dynamics of our case with the NCAA have evolved further, including additional violations committed on September 14 and in March 2011. The cumulative effect of the evolution of the investigation combined with a number of more recent non-NCAA-related incidents have led to a belief that this staff cannot be viable at Tennessee in the future. Therefore, it is in the best interests of our institution to move in a different direction.

We have included separation terms that will detail more clearly our role in the transition for Coach Pearl and his assistant coaches. In the meantime, we have named native Tennessean and a former head coach, Houston Fancher, as interim coach during our hiring process.

Our search process will begin immediately. This is a great job and will attract a significant number of interested coaches. Much of that interest is a tribute to what Coach Pearl has helped to build, but more importantly, what our fans have built. We will take an appropriate amount of time, but will move as swiftly as is effective to bring this to conclusion.

Lastly, I want to apologize to our fans for my untimely comments prior to last week's NCAA appearance. distraction to what has already been a year of distractions. While my comments were never intended for harm, they became an unneeded distraction to what has already been a year of distractions."

----- Terms of Agreement -----

• Head men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl will be paid at his current salary rate through June 30, 2011. He will also receive $50,000 per month for 12 months, from July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012, and will also receive health insurance costs. This cumulative figure is $948,728.
• Additionally, the men’s basketball coaching staff will each be paid at their current salary rate through July 31, 2011.

Continue reading...

Tennessee's travesty of a performance should spell the end for Bruce Pearl

It was a fitting send off for Bruce Pearl. A 75-45 loss to Michigan. Yuck.

In a season that was a roller coaster ride of embarrassment for Pearl and the Tennessee program, the Vols ended their season by packing it in at halftime of their opening round NCAA Tournament game against Michigan. Down 33-29 thanks to a buzzer-beating layup at the end of the first half by Darius Morris, Tennessee never showed up in the second half, allowing Michigan to go on a 42-16 second half run.

Seriously, Tennessee scored 16 second half points. The 30 point defeat was the worst of Bruce Pearl's career.

And Michigan did it without the benefit of a made free throw.

Simply put, the Vols gave up. They rolled over and died.

“We just didn’t play with no heart out there," Tobias Harris, who scored all of his 19 points in the first half, said after the game. "We basically just quit.”

I understand how a season with the kind of distractions and off the court issues can plague a team. I get that 18-22 year olds aren't exactly the most well prepared people for dealing with that kind of drama. And I feel bad ripping them for it, but it must be said.

I hate to sound like and old fogey, but playing in the NCAA Tournament is an honor. Don't believe me? Ask Malcolm Delaney. The Virginia Tech senior spent his entire career on the outside looking in. You don't think he would have given anything to have traded spots with the Vols?

Quitting on a game, quitting on your coach is disrespectful. Its disrespectful to the game, its disrespectful to the fans that spent all that money to travel to Charlotte to support you. Its a slap in the face to the teams that didn't make the NCAA Tournament cut.

I don't like bashing college athletes. They are kids. And contrary to popular opinion, they are not yet professional athletes.

But that performance today was an embarrassment. Its one thing to give up on a game when you are down 35 at halftime. Its another to quit when a game is still very winnable.

There is no way that Bruce Pearl can survive this.

With the NCAA preparing to drop another hammer on the Vols head coach and a team that is capable of quitting on the sport's biggest stage, its time for Pearl to go.

The good news?

Pearl will now be able to invite who every he pleases to his barbecues.
Continue reading...

Gary Parrish's scoop creates an interesting storyline

You've surely heard about it by now, but Gary Parrish broke the news of a recruiting violation committed by Arkansas head coach John Pelphrey.

In a photograph obtained by CBSSports.com, Pelphrey is shown posing with Sylvan Hill High standout Archie Goodwin (a consensus top-20 national recruit) and teammate Trey Smith last December at a high school tournament in Conway, Ark. Bylaw 13.1.1.1 states that off-campus contact cannot be made with a prospect (or his relatives or legal guardians) before July 1, following the completion of his junior year of high school. Goodwin and Smith are still in their junior years of high school.

Despite having a terrific recruiting class coming in next season, Pelphrey has come under fire in the last week as the good folks of Arkansas have been calling for his head. An ad was taken out in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last week urging fans to push for Pelphrey's firing.

That just about answers the question of how Parrish got a picture that, in Smith's words, happened as simply as "My mom was like, 'Hey, go get a picture.' So we snapped a picture." Someone that saw the photo and wants Pelphrey gone sent it to a guy he knew would be able to get it seen.

That's not what is interesting about this story.

Tonight at 7:30 pm, Arkansas plays Tennessee in the first round of the SEC Tournament.

Just in case your memory has failed you, Bruce Pearl was fined over $1 million, was suspended for eight games by the SEC, and is still facing the NCAA firing squad as a result of lying to the NCAA about a picture taken of Aaron Craft during an illegal recruiting visit to Pearl's home.
Continue reading...

Tennessee's hand will be forced by the NCAA

As you most certainly know by now, Tennessee received -- and released -- their Notice of Allegations from the NCAA regarding the infractions committed by the football and basketball teams. You can read it in its entirety here.

As you also should know by know, the only new information to come out of the NoA was that Bruce Pearl and Tony Jones made an illegal visit to a recruit just days after Pearl's tearful press conference where he admitted that he had made mistakes on the recruiting trail.

That's right.


On September 14th, just four days after Pearl sat in front of national television cameras and cried, telling the world how he was remorseful over the mistakes he made, Pearl went to Oak Hill Academy and "bumped" Jordan Adams, a 2012 recruit. Essentially, the "bump rule" allows a coach to greet a recruit at his high school should the two happen to cross paths, but anything more is considered a contact violation. Pearl talked with Adams for 2-3 minutes. This "bump" occurred during the two-week period between Pearl's press conference and the beginning of the school-sanctioned ban on off-campus recruiting.

Ballsy, ain't he?

For those expecting this document to bring with it any kind of news regarding Pearl's standing with the university, well, you got your hopes up for nothing. The school has until May to respond to the NoA, and a hearing has been scheduled for June 10th and 11th of this year. And if Tennessee has told us anything, its that they are going to ride with Pearl until forced to do otherwise.

If they weren't, Pearl probably would have been let go a long time ago.

The Tennessee coach not only committed violations, he lied about them when confronted by the NCAA. He then tried to convince a recruit's father -- Jon Craft, the father of Ohio State point guard and then-Tennessee commit Aaron -- to lie to the NCAA to cover for him.

That's brazen. And just cause for termination.

So if Tennessee was going to do away with their popular head coach, he would be gone already.

But they don't. This is an athletic department that clearly values victories over ethics.

Pearl has brought Tennessee basketball to unprecedented heights. He wins basketball games. He's bringing all-americans to Knoxville. He's making Elite 8's. His teams fill Thompson-Boling Arena. And, most importantly, he has the undying support of the Tennessee faithful. The scene last night at Vanderbilt was telling. With news that the NoA was due to arrive, Pearl walked out of an opponent's arena waving and blowing kisses to throngs of Tennessee fans after an important, come from behind win.


The Vols may just be put into a situation where they are forced to make a change.

You see, the NCAA hit Pearl with an "unethical conduct" charge. As Dana O'Neil dug up this afternoon, cases in which an unethical conduct charge is brought almost always result in a show-cause penalty, which is more or less means getting blacklisted by the NCAA.

What will be interesting to see is whether the NCAA accepts the punishments given out by Tennessee and the SEC as enough. Pearl's already lost $1.5 million and sat out eight games of this SEC season.

Will that be enough to satiate a Committee on Infractions that just slammed a UConn Director of Basketball Operations with a two-year show cause penalty to lying?

Methinks it won't.
Continue reading...

Bruce Pearl, Rick Pitino, and Jim Calhoun teaching clinics on dealing with adversity

The new AP and Coaches polls were released this afternoon.

The Big Ten has five teams in each poll. The Big XII has six in the AP poll and five in the Coaches poll, with Texas A&M checking in 26th. The Big East has seven in both. Based on those numbers alone, its pretty easy to see why those three conferences are universally regarded as the three best in the country.

It wasn't supposed to be that way.

Before the season began, all the pundits -- ourselves included -- said that the Big Ten and the Big XII were far and away the two best conferences in the country. Both appeared to be far stronger at the top than the other six power conferences, and neither of them had the amount of extra baggage at the bottom of the league that the Big East does.

What changed?

There are a number of answers to that question. Purdue lost Robbie Hummel for the season with a torn acl. Neither Michigan State or Kansas State has played up to their potential. Teams like Texas, Missouri, and Minnesota have alternated looking great with looking thoroughly mediocre.

But perhaps the single biggest reason that the Big East is in the conversation as the best conference in the country has been the play of two teams no one expected much out of this season -- Louisville and UConn.

It wouldn't be easy to find a team with a more turbulent 12 months than UConn or Louisville.

The Huskies are facing NCAA sanctions after a scandal came to light involving a recruit (presumably Nate Miles), an agent with ties to the UConn program, and UConn's knowledge of this relationship. Jim Calhoun steered clear (or attempted to) of the allegations by throwing his staff and his athletic department under the bus, but he couldn't avoid the speculation that his diminishing health and a program on a downward trend would force his ouster as head Husky.


With Kemba Walker surrounded by, well, Alex Oriakhi and a bunch of freshmen, no one was surprised that the Huskies were picked to finish 10th in the Big East. Not with that kind of cloud looming over their head.

Its also why no one could have predicted the Huskies incredible run in the Maui Invitational. As you are all well aware, UConn knocked off Wichita State, Kentucky, and Michigan State on the shoulders on Kemba Walker, climbing to No. 4 in the polls released today.

Louisville's start has not made as many national headlines, but they have been just as surprising.

Everything that could have gone wrong this offseason did. To start, Louisville lost two star recruits -- Michael Chandler and Marquis Teague. One of those recruits, Teague, ended up committing to rival Kentucky. All this happened while Rick Pitino's name was dragged through the mud during Karen Sypher's trial for attempting to extort Pitino. Then freshman Justin Coleman was declared ineligible, Roburt Sallie did not graduate in time from Memphis to gain eligibility at Louisville, and Russ Smith and Jared Swopshire (who was expected to start) were injured before the season even began. Do I need to mention Preston Knowles' suspension for getting into a fight with his girlfriend's father?


None of it, however, has slowed down the Cardinals. Louisville is now 8-0 on the season with impressive wins over Butler and UNLV. Perhaps more important than those victories was a win Pitino had on the recruiting trail. Over the weekend, he landed a commitment from Rodney Purvis, a top ten player in the class of 2012.

So much for the embarrassment of the Sypher trial affecting Pitino's ability to recruit.

But when it comes to overcoming adversity, no one has done it better than Bruce Pearl and the Tennessee Volunteers.

The past year has been incredibly difficult for Pearl's program. On New Years Day of this year, four of his players were caught in a car with guns, drugs, and an open bottle of liquor. Tyler Smith ended up being kicked off the team, while Brian Williams, Melvin Goins, and Cam Tatum were all suspended for multiple games. Then there was Bruce Pearl's recruiting violations, his lies to the NCAA and to his program trying to cover it up, his upcoming eight game suspension, and the looming NCAA sanctions.


There is not shortage of distraction there, yet Pearl's club has gone 25-7 in 2010 calender year. That includes wins over Kansas and Kentucky last year, a run that took them within one possession of making the 2010 Final Four, and this season's 7-0 start with wins over Villanova and Pitt, which came on Saturday. The win over Pitt was so impressive that it vaulted the Volunteers to No. 7 in the country. Keep in mind, this team was picked to finish 4th in the SEC East.

That's not supposed to happen.

None of it is.

Team's facing this kind of adversity are not supposed to be winning games, but they are.

And while the guys doing the bulk of the work are wearing the uniforms -- Kemba Walker and Scotty Hopson are playing their way up NBA draft boards, while Louisville has had different heroes every night, most recently Knowles and his 20 point second half against UNLV -- the credit has to be given to the coaches.

In this day and age, its near impossible to keep your players insulated from media and fan scrutiny. Not when a simple google search will bring any number of words written on your team. Not when message boards give every moron with a keyboard a voice. And especially not when its possible to mention a player in a tweet and have the message go straight to that player's phone.

For Jim Calhoun, Rick Pitino, and Bruce Pearl, their task at hand has been to keep their players focus on the court, not off of it.

I think its safe to say they have done an impressive job in that department.

Love 'em, hate 'em, completely indifferent towards 'em, the job that these three coaches have done this season in the face of this kind of adversity is impressive, to say the absolute least.
Continue reading...

Bruce Pearl's mouth keeps getting him in trouble

I've always liked Bruce Pearl.

He seems like a fun-loving guy, whether he is painting himself Orange and sitting in the student section for a Lady Vol's game or going shirtless and rapping with his players.

He's a fun-loving coach, someone that I would want to play for if I were, you know, good at basketball.

But he doesn't always seems to have the greatest sense of what is right and wrong to say. He's already been punished by the University of Tennessee and the SEC for lying -- and pressuring a recruit's parents to back up his lie -- in regards to recruiting violations, and he still has potential NCAA sanctions to look forward to. So maybe it isn't the best time for Pearl to be making jokes like this:

"I've made mistakes, I clearly did," Pearl said Monday while addressing the Knoxville Quarterback club, "but what I was hoping for was that some other dumbass would get on the front page and take me off the hook.

"I miss Lane Kiffin."

I'm all for being able to laugh at yourself.

There isn't much in this world that should be taken seriously enough so as to lose your sense of humor.

But maybe, just maybe, Pearl wants to at least appear to be taking his actions seriously. The major issue here is that Pearl lied to investigators. That he didn't take their investigation seriously enough to own up to his mistakes.

And now he is making jokes about it? In front of reporters?

Does he realize the NCAA still can hand down a punishment?

This isn't the first time Pearl has created a stir with an ill-conceived joke, either.

I'm all for a good laugh. But there is a time and a place.

And this was neither.
Continue reading...

Bruce Pearl suspended for eight games

We finally have the ruling on Bruce Pearl.

Well, from the SEC at least.

Today, SEC commissioner Mike Slive sent a letter to Tennessee on Thursday that Pearl will be suspended from coaching the Volunteers, who are 3-0 but have a couple of unimpressive victories on their resume, during the first eight games of the SEC schedule. He is, however, allowed to coach the team during the remainder of their non-conference schedule and will be allowed to run practices during that time. He just won't be on the sideline come gameday.

The rest of this post can be found at Beyond the Arc.
Continue reading...

Turns out Bruce Pearl isn't under contract at Tennessee

On September 10th, Bruce Pearl held a press conference where he admitted to, among other things, lying to the NCAA about recruiting violations that he committed while at Tennessee.

He wasn't the only one that had been less than truthful.

You see, the day before Pearl's press conference, Tennessee had terminated their contract with Pearl. Since that day, he had been working under a letter of appointment with the University. A new contract was sent on October 8th to Pearl and his lawyers, and the two sides are still working out the details.

"We've made the decision — and Bruce knows it — that he's our coach, and this is just a part of the formal process to get him back under the new contract with the new terms," Hamilton said Thursday night. "Technically, he violated the terms of the previous contract, so that contract had to be terminated. There was a new contract [needed] as a result of that."

Shocking as this news is, the fact that Pearl isn't currently under contract isn't the most interesting part of this story. The interesting part is the letter that was sent from Tennessee to Pearl informing him of their decision to terminate the contract. (You can read the full letter here (PDF).) There is some pretty damning stuff in there:

On September 20th, 2008, you knowingly violated NCAA rules by hosting, at your house during a team cookout, three prospective student-athletes making unofficial visits and their families. At your house, you admitted to the unofficial visitors and their families that their presence at your house was a violation of NCAA rules. You also told the unofficial visitors and their families that your were not going to tell anyone about the NCAA rules violation, and you asked that they not tell anyone either. ... Your conduct failed to promote an atmosphere for compliance within the men's basketball program and conveyed the wrong message to a prospective student-athlete and his family about your stance, and by implication the University's stance, on compliance with NCAA rules.

On June 14, 2010, the first day you were interviewed by the NCAA relating to its investigation into potential rules violations in the men's basketball program, you failed to promote an atmosphere for compliance within the men's basketball program and failed to protect the integrity of the NCAA's investigation by meeting with your assistant coaches and talking about their NCAA interviews before you were interviewed by the NCAA later the same day.

Prior to and after your interview on June 14, you interfered with and failed to protect the integriy of the NCAA's investigation by calling the father of the prospective-student athlete who had been at your home during an unofficial visit on September 20, 2008. According to you, you called the father in part to "remind" him that your told the parents on September 20, 2008, that it would be a violation of NCAA rules for them to attend the team cookout at your home and that you gave them a choice whether to attend. At the very least, your calls to the father created the appearance that you were trying to influence the father's statements to the NCAA.

You June 14 statements regarding the photograph were dishonest, and you engaged in unethical conduct when you knowingly furnished the NCAA enforcement staff and the University's outside counsel with false and misleading information concerning the photograph. Although not necessary to a finding of gross misconduct, our conclusion is that your false and misleading statements to the NCAA on June 14 were deliberate and premeditated.

And the most damning quote of them all:

Based on the facts described above, Chancellor Cheek and I have determined that you engaged in gross misconduct, including dishonesty and other acts of intolerable behavior. As a result, the University is terminating your Employment Agreement.

After all of that, Tennessee is still negotiating a new contract with Pearl?

I know that Tennessee has sent a new contract to Pearl, but after reading that letter, I find it difficult to truly believe that the school is going to bring Pearl back.

(Ed. Note: I had planned on using the lead "Bruce Pearl really is a Volunteer" for this post, but freakin' Norlander beat me too it.)

Continue reading...

Bruce Pearl committed the same violation in 2004

I bet you didn't think it could get much worse for Bruce Pearl this summer, did ya?

Well, it can. And it did.

According to a report this afternoon from Dana O'Neil and Pat Forde of ESPN.com, when Bruce Pearl was the head coach at UW-Milwaukee the program self-reported violations to the NCAA. That violation was Pearl inviting a junior recruit, reportedly Mike Schachtner, to his house for his daughter's graduation party. High school juniors are not allowed to meet with coaches at off-campus sites.

This also happens to be the violation that the NCAA caught Pearl lying about during their investigation of his recruitment of Josh Selby and Aaron Craft.

So maybe we now know why Pearl lied about recognizing the picture of him and Craft in Pearl's house. You don't want to be caught by the NCAA doing the same thing twice. You might get off fairly easy the first time, but do the same thing again and they will be coming after you.

Not only did Pearl commit the same offense a second time, he lied to the NCAA to try and cover it up.

You may want to be out of earshot when the hammer finally drops
Continue reading...

Tennessee's self-reported violations revealed

Late last night, Dana O'Neil broke the news that ESPN.com had obtained documents that show the violations that Tennessee self-reported to the NCAA. (To read them, click this link for a PDF file.)

In those documents, almost 100 impermissible phone calls were made by Pearl and his staff over a two year period, including 44 (39 by Tony Jones and five by Pearl) to a recruit currently on the Tennessee roster. In addition, a previously unreported violation was revealed:

The university admitted that assistant coach Jason Shay approved lodging expenses for the parents of three recruits, who were en route to Knoxville for official visits, and that those three recruits each were allowed visits that extended beyond the NCAA mandate of 48 hours.

Four player's currently on the Tennessee roster had their names redacted in the document, but there was quite a talented group of players -- Elliot Williams, Chris Singleton, Josh Selby, Rico Pickett, Aaron Craft, Griffin McKenzie, and Justin Martin -- whose names were kept in the documents.

The thing to keep in mind here is that none of this information is new. Tennessee knew about these violations, handing down some initial sanctions earlier this year -- including reductions in recruiting hours and the like -- and last month, once it was revealed that Pearl lied to NCAA investigators, bringing the hammer down on the coaching staff's wallets.

Hell, the public knew about most of this information already. These documents, simply put, give us specifics.

And the specifics aren't terrible. Pearl and his staff were found to have made less than 100 impermissible calls, which is about the same number that cost Kelvin Sampson his job at Indiana. The difference is that Sampson was a repeat offender, losing the gig at Oklahoma for some 577 impermissible calls he made while with the Sooners.

But, as has been reported over the last two weeks, the issue for Pearl is not that he committed violations, but that he lied about them when the NCAA had him caught red-handed.

Seeing these documents really must irk Vol fans. These violations are relatively minor.

But an epically failed attempt at a cover up could cost them their beloved head coach.

Continue reading...

New information and more recruiting violations turn up in the Bruce Pearl scandal

And we all thought Bruce Pearl had come clean.

Nope.

Gary Parrish of CBSSports broke the news this afternoon that there was more to the Pearl investigation. He didn't lie (or just lie) about phone calls. He lied -- excuse me, he provided "incorrect and misleading information" -- to the NCAA about illegally hosting recruits in his home. From CBSSports.com:

Class of 2010 standout Aaron Craft is at the center of the investigation, according to sources. The point guard from Ohio committed to Tennessee in September 2008, i.e., at the beginning of his junior year.

Sources told CBSSports.com that Craft -- along with fellow Class of 2010 prospect Josh Selby, who also was committed to Tennessee at the time, and perhaps another recruit -- visited Pearl's home during an unofficial visit to Tennessee later that same year, which is a violation of NCAA rules because high school juniors aren't allowed to engage college coaches away from campus. Pearl denied that Craft and Selby ever had been to his home when NCAA assistant director of enforcement Kristen Matha initially asked. The problem with that approach was that the NCAA, according to sources, already had in its possession a picture of Pearl and Craft that was snapped inside Pearl's home, which led to the line of questioning in the first place. It's unclear who took the picture or how the NCAA obtained it.

UPDATE: GoVolsXtra has some more information on the scandal. Current UT freshman Jordan McRae was also allegedly at Pearl's house at the same time that Craft and Selby were there. GVX also makes mention of another potential violation, as juniors on unofficial visits are not allowed to receive food and drinks at an off-campus setting.

GVX seems to have also identified the where the lying occurred, as Pearl apparently denied recognizing the picture of himself and Craft despite the photo having been taken in his own home.


I don't have the energy to put together another entire post about Pearl. And while I've heard that there very well could be more to come from this investigation, I think that as the situation currently stands, my argument from this post is still valid. Pearl skirted the rules of his profession, but making excessive phone calls and illegally hosting a recruit are only crimes in the eyes of the NCAA. Depending on what, if any, other news comes out, I may be singing a very different tune in the coming weeks.

A couple of thoughts on this new information:

• Will this cost Pearl his job?: That is the million dollar question. Tennessee had to have known about the picture, and they likely already know about anything else that may come out during the NCAA's, and the media's, investigation. As Andy Katz wrote earlier today (before the Parrish story), Pearl could receive a show-cause penalty while he is still under contract by Tennessee. As Katz explains, "the school has to go in front of the COI to explain how the coach could be on staff while handling restrictions (no contact with recruits, competition, etc.). The committee then could rule that the coach can't participate in coaching activities for a certain number of years."
  
  Most seem to believe that the NCAA will tack on to the punishment that Pearl has already received from Tennessee. If that additional punishment is a show-cause penalty, will the Volunteers keep Pearl under contract if he is not allowed to be a coach?


• Why didn't Pearl just come clean at the press conference he had on Friday?: All the information we had at the time was that Pearl had made impermissible phone calls while recruiting, but he obviously knew that much more would eventually come out. He didn't necessarily lie at the press conference -- he admitted to lying to investigators and that his conscience made him come clean (Does anyone believe that anymore? How many bought it in the first place?) -- but he certainly didn't come close to admitting what actually happened. In other words, he provided "incorrect and misleading information" during the presser.
  


• How will the media handle this situation?: Pearl is generally liked, and as a result, the overwhelming sentiment seems to be one of understanding. 'Hey, everyone does this. Pearl did it to survive in a cutthroat recruiting world. Its a pity, but its the world he works in.' Will anyone rip him?
  


• Imagine what would happen if this had been John Calipari caught up in this mess: Twitter would have melted down by now. Fans, and haters, of Kentucky could have imploded the internet as well. But this is Bruce Pearl, and while people that follow college basketball are going to know who he is, does the sports world in general know, or care, about Pearl beyond his shirtless antics? If this was Coach Cal that was caught red-handed, lying to the NCAA about recruiting violations, you can be certain that every columnist in the country would have a say on the matter.
  
  But Pearl?
  
  Pearl is a goofy, likable basketball coach at a school with no basketball tradition. He's just another in a long list of college coaches that have been busted doing something against NCAA rules. Does anyone actually care?
  


• The ironic part in all of this mess?: Aaron Craft and Josh Selby, the two Tennessee commits that Pearl was recruiting when he committed the alleged violations, both ended up at different schools. Craft went to Ohio State, and Selby is at Kansas, although he is not yet cleared to play. Pearl could lose his job, and stall a promising career, for a couple of kids that he didn't even get to coach.


• Maybe it wasn't the most intelligent thing for Bruce Pearl to take a picture with a recruit during an illegal visit? I'm just sayin'...


• Don't think it would ever happen.
  

Continue reading...

Reactions to Bruce Pearl from around the web

As we all know by now, Bruce Pearl came clean on the recruiting violations and his subsequent cover-up during the NCAA's investigation. Below, we give you snippets of what the best in the business think about the Pearl's admissions. For our take, go here. And, as always, if you have a link you want us to share, hit us up on twitter or send an email to contactbiah AT gmail DOT com.


Dana O'Neil, ESPN.com: "He did the right thing, that was Bruce Pearl's mantra. When his peers labeled him a rat and a snitch and ostracized him within his profession for nearly 15 years because he turned in Illinois, Pearl held fast to his strongest defense -- that he did the right thing. And so to hear a teary-eyed Pearl admit that he did the wrong thing, that he misled NCAA investigators, it was both deliciously ironic and depressingly eye-opening. This is what we've come to, apparently. Even the one who suffered for his principles has been sucked into the vortex of anything for survival."

Michael Rosenberg, SI.com: "Pearl was once the NCAA's most famous whistle-blower; now he is one of its most infamous liars. What happened to Pearl between 1990 and now? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Pearl helped the NCAA bust Illinois 20 years ago for the same reason he lied to the NCAA this time around: self-interest. It is the same reason some coaches break rules every day of the week and twice on their day off. Two decades ago, Pearl saw an opening, a chance to bring down a rival, and he took it. This year, he saw a chance to get a recruiting edge (and cover his own butt), and he took that, too."

Joel Hollingsworth, Rocky Top Talk: "This is truly awful, and I'm not even considering the sanctions at this point. I'm talking about watching Pearl fight back tears of embarrassment and shame, which he himself will tell you he deserves, as he took full responsibility for his actions and apologized, saying he let down himself, the University, the fans, and his players. Yeah, as much talk of rules violations as circulate on message boards, blogs, and other internet comment threads, there is no getting around this: We cheated. We lied. And it wasn't Lane Kiffin or Ed Oregeron who did it. It was Bruce Pearl. All that said, I think Pearl deserves a great deal of credit for the way he's handling himself now, and I'm betting that's a huge reason why he's still the coach. No one but Pat Summitt has more good will in the bank at Tennessee than Pearl, and while he may have spent every last penny, he still has a job here, and I, for one, am glad. But if there had been any hint of defensiveness or arrogance about, well, that could very well have been a different story. He says he wants to coach the rest of his career at Tennessee and that he'll never let us down like this again. Call me naive if you like, but I believe him."

Eamonn Brennan, ESPN.com: "Going back and correcting the record is an important step toward a more lenient approach from the NCAA. So is the punishment Tennessee handed down. A ban on off-campus recruiting and a serious pay cut for Pearl and his staff are the sorts of this-hits-home things the NCAA committee on infractions will have to take into positive consideration. That said, there's no going back. Pearl lied to investigators. Tennessee's neck now rests directly under the NCAA's impersonal, unfeeling scythe. And while the self-imposed penalties and contrition are nice, they only go so far. Judging by the NCAA's recent behavior -- specifically in the case of Oklahoma State football player Dez Bryant, who failed to fully disclose his relationship with former NFL player Deion Sanders and was suspended for an entire season as a result -- things could get much worse before they get better."

John Clay, Lexington Herald: "If a college football player can be suspended (ruled ineligible) for lying to the NCAA, why isn’t a coach fired for lying to the NCAA? Or at the very least be suspended? One is a student, after all. The other is an adult. Or is this just another NCAA example of one set of rules for a so-called student-athlete, and another set of rules for the coaches and administrators?"

Gary Parrish, CBSSports.com: "3. So why don't coaches get a second (i.e., secret) cell phone that isn't university issued?
Most of them do; that's among the other problems at Tennessee. Seems some of the coaches (if not all) had second cell phones that might've been used to make excessive contact with recruits, which, by the way, is a fairly common practice. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I tell you most high-major coaches and assistants have multiple cell phones -- one cell phone that's university issued, another that's in somebody else's name. Legal calls are made from the university cell phone, illegal calls from the other. Mistakes only happen when somebody gets reckless or confused. And it's a system that works perfectly ... right up until the NCAA finds the other cell phone, gets a number on it, pins it on you, and pours through the records. When that happens, well, here we are. "

Jeff Goodman, FOXSports.com: "The significant hit for the program will come in the fact that Pearl will not be permitted to engage in any off-campus recruiting for one year — from Sept. 24, 2010 until Sept. 23, 2011. Not only that, but all three assistant coaches — Tony Jones, Steve Forbes and Jason Shay — will also have their salaries cut by 25 percent for the next year and will have recruiting limitations."

Jeff Eisenberg, The Dagger: "It's difficult to overstate the significance of these penalties to a long-dormant Vols program that had come alive in the past five years thanks to the charisma and leadership of Pearl. The Vols advanced to their first-ever Elite Eight last March and are expected to contend for an NCAA tournament berth again next season, but severe recruiting restrictions and the threat of further sanctions will make it difficult to continue that upward trend. Since arriving at Tennessee, Pearl has charmed fans, recruits and reporters with his boisterous personality and chest-painting antics. Even in his news conference Friday afternoon, Pearl joked that one of his players must be trying to save him after a fire alarm unexpectedly interrupted. The comment drew a chuckle from those in the room. Unfortunately for him, he'll likely find that NCAA investigators aren't so easily won over.

Andy Katz, ESPN.com: "The NCAA's enforcement staff has been charged to clean up the game as much as possible. The reason there appears to be more schools in power-six conferences under scrutiny of late is that the enforcement staff is looking closely at all elite recruits. The NCAA investigators have let it be known to college coaches that they are looking at everything and using all information they receive. But the enforcement staff is also receiving more cooperation than it has in the past from coaches. The agent/runner issue has pushed more coaches to speak out and provide information, especially in the major conferences, where information is flowing freely in a more open media age. Tennessee sent a strong message -- the right message -- that lying to investigators won't be tolerated and a severe punishment can follow. And if it's truly "all about money," then perhaps pay cuts will be another wake-up call to get coaches' attention. If Friday's news out of Knoxville doesn’t make coaches sweat, I'm not sure what will."

John Adams, Go Vols Xtra: "Here's another stunner: multi-million-dollar mistakes aside, UT basketball is still better off with Pearl than without him, which speaks more to the pre-Pearl status of the program. You didn't catch NCAA investigators sniffing around Peterson's UT program. Who's to say they even realized UT had a basketball program back then? Pearl has buried memories of that program with a fast-break rebuilding job that hasn't slowed down for five years. He has taken the Vols to five consecutive NCAA tournaments and to within a few agonizing seconds of the Final Four. He has beaten No. 1-ranked teams and been ranked No. 1. He has painted himself orange and endeared himself to UT men's basketball fans like no coach since Ray Mears. Now, one incredible turnaround has been followed by another. When you woke up Friday morning, you thought UT's football program was the one in the NCAA crosshairs. You also thought Lane Kiffin was the UT-connected coach on the NCAA hit list."

Rush The Court: "While this doesn’t mean that the NCAA won’t take additional action against Tennessee the move is somewhat refreshing in that a major university has finally went after a coach’s salary for his egregious errors instead of nebulous concepts like 1-2 recruiting visits per year although Pearl won’t be on a street corner begging for money any time soon as he is still scheduled to collect $1.4 million from coaching in 2011 (plus whatever else he gets from endorsements and speaking engagements)."

Continue reading...