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.