Opulence: Bruce Pearl had it

Man, Bruce Pearl was living large not so long ago.  The guy had the Three F’s that damn near every middle aged guy longs for: fame, fortune and a full head of hair.

In a era when fans can become fickle overnight, he enjoyed almost universal support from the folks at Tennessee. Sure, some of his players could be giant knuckleheads from time to time, but that was easily forgiven in the midst of Pearl’s teams winning a lot more than they lost.

But in the past seven months, Pearl pissed it all away like a sorority girl who’s just finished drinking three too many Long Island iced teas. That’s the span of time it took for him to go from the penthouse to a crappy studio apartment.

With his firing this week, Pearl’s saga hasn’t yet drawn to a conclusion. The now former Tennessee basketball coach still has to go before the NCAA infractions committee in June, at which time he could be slapped with a show-cause.

Coaches fear the show-cause the same way a supermodel fears gaining a single pound or the way Gina fears Martin’s mom. It’s the NCAA’s scarlet “A,” and once it’s slapped on a coach, every school in the country will shun him.

Think I’m exaggerating? Todd Bozeman got an eight-year long show-cause back in the 90’s for his role in the Jelani-gate fiasco while he was coaching Cal. It would be two years after the show-cause ended before one of college basketball’s most remote outposts, Morgan State, would hire him.

That’s right, after a show-cause, the best college job a coach can hope for is the hoops equivalent of an Arctic radar station. And that’s if he’s lucky.

How did Bruce Pearl get to this point? How does a guy go from being a school’s cult hero to teetering on the brink of being out of the sport altogether?

By now, we all know it wasn’t because he improperly hosted some recruits at his house for a barbecue. That onto itself was an infraction the NCAA could have lived with.

It’s the fact that Pearl initially lied to the NCAA about it that started the wheels in motion. It prompted the powers that be at his school and at the SEC to levy sanctions against him, which included a reduction in pay and an embarrassing in-season suspension that forced him to miss his team’s first eight conference games.

Once all that happened, the NCAA was hypersensitive to Pearl’s every move. So when it came to light that he had possibly had improper contact with a junior recruit at Oak Hill Academy back in September, which is known as a “bump,” the NCAA treated it as a major infraction. That’s because that contact had supposedly occurred just days after Tennessee had levied those sanctions.

In the eyes of the sport’s governing body, Pearl was a cheater of the highest order. Still, Tennessee continued to support him right up until a few weeks ago. The reason that support eroded was partially explained in a statement put out by Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton:

“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,” Hamilton said. “Therefore, it is in the best interests of our institution to move in a different direction.” (New York Times)

Whoa, “recent non-NCAA-related incidents” is a real eye opener. ESPN’s Andy Katz provides more details:

The non-NCAA related incident, according to multiple sources, was a violation of the Tennessee athletic department substance abuse policy by UT senior forward Brian Williams. Williams missed the last two regular-season games at South Carolina and at home against Kentucky due to what team officials said was a bad back. (ESPN.com)

With all things being considered, Pearl had become too hot a potato for Tennessee to hold onto. You have to wonder if the NCAA has indicated to the school behind the scenes that any penalties that might be levied against the basketball program this summer could be less severe if Pearl is no longer around.

In the end, Tennessee agreed to pay Pearl a total of $948,728 in salary and benefits as part of his dismissal agreement. That’s a nice chunk of change for him to live off of while he waits to see what the NCAA has in store for him this June.

I’m of the opinion that the NCAA might view Pearl’s transgressions in a harsher light when you consider the guy’s background as a whistleblower. In the early 90’s when he was an assistant at Iowa, Pearl kickstarted an NCAA investigation of Illinois by claiming that school had given Deon Thomas improper benefits.

I can just picture the ten members of the Committee on Infractions rolling their eyes in unison and saying things like, “Wow, people in glass houses.” I doubt the CoI will have much pity on Pearl, who in the span of twenty years morphed from a champion of virtue to being an H.R. Haldeman-esque cover up artist.

I invoke the name of Haldeman because I really do think Pearl has a Richard Nixon quality about him. Tricky Dick had it so good in 1972, which is why the Watergate crap was so utterly unnecessary.

The same thing goes for Pearl as well. It’s as simple as not having those recruits over to your house in the first place. Why risk a dream gig for something so trivial?

Things I think I might sorta know about this NCAA Tournament

Every friggin’ year I do the same friggin’ thing, and every year I agonize over it.  I get my March Madness bracket and just LABOR over it, like it’s the LSAT and I’m trying to get into law school.

Some years I’ve done pretty damn well, and other years, well, other years my bracket looked as if a circus monkey filled it out.  But with less than 10 hours to go before the first play-in opening round game or whatever that hell you call it is going to tip off, I still haven’t filled out a bracket.

At this point, with the deadline so close, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before: give myself a five minute time limit to fill out the bracket and then be done with it.

I don’t want to deal with the frustration this time around.  In the past I’ve pondered the thing for hours, researched stats, filled it completely out, and then gone back to it because there was some 5/12 game I suddenly wanted to switch around.  You know what that does?  It starts the whole damn process over again.

So I’m going to go with the things I think I might sorta know about this field and just have at it.  So here goes:

◊ I’ve talked myself into thinking that 15th seeded UCSB is going to take out 2nd seeded Florida in the Southeast Region. In Tampa no less. Do I have that much against the Gators? Not really, I’m not holding that loss to Kentucky in the SEC Tourney final against them to the degree that others are.

I guess I’m just of the mindset that UCSB, despite a decidedly lackluster regular season, might be playing extremely loose. They went dancing last year, slept through most of the campaign and probably didn’t really expect to make this tournament. Therefore, the pressure on the Gauchos is even lower than it normally is for a 15 seed.

UCSB is actually a decent defensive team, ranking first in the Big West blocked shots (4.2 bpg) and steals (7.3 spg). And with two reliable scorers in juniors Orlando Johnson (21.1 ppg) and James Nunnally (16.4 ppg), points in crunch time probably won’t be an issue for them. Okay, I’ve done it, I’ve talked myself into this upset special.

◊ Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, keeps telling me that 14th seed Belmont is going to take out 3rd seed Wisconsin in the Southeast. Hell, I’m leaning that way as well, just look at how Rick Byrd’s team dominated the Atlantic Sun. The Bruins are forcing an INSANE 19.2 turnovers a game.

In Wisconsin, you would think that Belmont has the perfect matchup. Why? Because Wisconsin doesn’t claim a huge edge in terms of overall athleticism. Yup, nobody is going to confuse the ‘10-’11 Badgers with being the ‘90-’91 Running Rebels. Also, Bo Ryan’s team hasn’t exactly been playing its best basketball in the last week and a half.

But don’t sell the Badgers short because of their recent swoon. They’ve committed just 229 turnovers in 31 contests, and a team that takes care of the basketball to this degree is a team Belmont will have difficulty with. As badly as I wanna follow the crowd and pick the upset in this one, my gut is telling me to go with Wisconsin.

◊ I have been singing the praises of San Diego State all season, so much so that @MarkArum believes I’m now a bigger Aztec fan than Marshall Faulk. I’ve stuck with this team this far, so I might as well stick with them even further.

Doing so implies that I might even pick SDSU over the top seed in their region, defending national champ Duke. And Duke will be that much better if freshman point guard Kyrie Irving is available and plays effectively.

I’d feel a lot better about the Aztecs if they had a more reliable scoring option on the wing. But any offensive deficiencies this team has are for the large part masked by solid defensive play. In Ken Pomeroy’s latest defensive ratings, SDSU is fourth nationally, right behind Duke.

Also, I’ll always give the time of day to a team that can rebound, and the Aztecs have a healthy +6.7 margin on the season. Yeah, I’ve talked myself into going a little further with this team.

◊ There’s an awful lot to like about Kansas, the top seed in the Southwest Region. The Jayhawks seem capable of hitting another switch offensively to get that 3 or 4 minute spurt that’s needed to pull away. They’re the country’s best shooting team (51.8%) and one of the best at generating second chance points (+7.7 rebound margin).

But I felt so much more positive about last year’s Kansas team than I do about this one. And as you recall, that bunch couldn’t get past Northern Iowa in the ‘10 NCAA Tournament. I’ve just got this nagging feeling that the current Jayhawk backcourt can be had by the right kind of team, say, a team like the Southwest’s 4 seed, Louisville.

If these teams hook up, I feel good about Louisville’s chances. The Cardinals have generated an impressive 546 turnovers on the season, and like I said, I think KU’s guards (Tyshawn Taylor especially) are susceptible to pressure. I’ll look silly if Kansas ends up cutting down the nets, but hey, I’ve already made up my mind.

◊ I think I wrote off Vanderbilt over a week ago, and I’m sticking with that notion. That’s because Kevin Stallings’s team flat out can’t take care of the basketball. The Commodores are -0.9 in turnover margin, a figure that ranks 243rd nationally.

If fact, Vanderbilt has turned it over 80 more times than its first round opponent, Atlantic 10 champ Richmond. Another feather in Richmond’s cap is point guard Kevin Anderson, who’s started 128 straight games at point guard. Never underestimate the importance of solid guard play in this tournament.

In last year’s tournament, Vandy was taken out in the first round by Murray State. I’ve convinced myself that history will repeat itself this week.

Okay, I’ve now blazed through the brackets, taking the things I think I might know and coming up with this Final Four:

East - Syracuse (?!?!?)
West - San Diego State (I can’t quit the Aztecs)
Southwest - Notre Dame (How did that happen?)
Southeast - Pittsburgh (Only #1 seed I showed love to)

Now that I look at that, I’ve got that old urge to do some more bracket readjustment. Then again, screw it, I’ll keep this train wreck so all of you can have something to laugh at.

America’s new threat: old fart college hoops refs

By now you’ve seen the rather curious ending to yesterday’s Big East Tourney tilt between Rutgers and St. John’s. Personally, I was thankful for the controversy after enduring 38 minutes of pretty boring basketball:

That’s Justin Brownlee of St. John’s traveling and then stepping out of bounds right at the end. For good measure, he then tosses the basketball into the stands. But the officiating crew of Jim Burr, Tim Higgins and Earl Walton didn’t see fit to blow a whistle for any of those infractions.

It makes you wonder if Brownlee could’ve just kept going and punched Rutgers coach Mike Rice with no repercussions.  Probably so, because at that point, the trio of Burr, Higgins and Walton appeared to be much more interested in making their early reservation at the Ruby Tuesday on 8th Avenue than in officiating the game in front of them.

Obviously, the Big East had no choice but to acknowledge the fiasco now that ESPN has shown it on a continuous loop:

“The Big East Conference acknowledges that two separate officiating errors occurred at the conclusion of the St. John’s vs. Rutgers game,” Commissioner John Marinatto said of the performance by referees Jim Burr, Tim Higgins and Carl Walton in a statement issued by the Big East. “Both missed violations should have caused the game clock to stop and a change of possession to occur prior to the end of the game. Neither error is reviewable or correctable under NCAA playing rules.” (Washington Post)

Of course the league won’t acknowledge something else that many people are thinking: old fart referees can’t properly keep up with the action.  Burr and Higgins are both 64, and in the case of Burr, at least one Facebook page has been created that acknowledges his advanced age: