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Bruce Pearl

He’s a helluva coach. Not sure anyone in this tournament is playing as well as Auburn right now.
Meh, they can be beat by a more disciplined team.

They were so wild and erratic at times against UNC. I get that this is where the game is heading, but in stretches where their crazy shot attempts aren't falling and it leads to turnovers, a disciplined team can take advantage of that.

UNC was not that team much at all tonight.
 
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Why??? Because he told the truth about Deon Thomas and Illinois cheating? Bob Knight backed him up, FWIW.

This is the hill you wish to die on? That Pearl isn’t cheating and sleazy?

How many assistants at Auburn have been investigated/indicted? How many players suspended in it? He had a show cause.

You can do two very different things in wanting him as a coach:

(1) believe everybody cheats so embrace it, or
(2) want to win so bad you are willing to cheat.

What you can’t legitimately do is believe he doesn’t cheat.
 
Question is, could recruit at iowa like he has down there
Probably: Look what our last African American coach did!! There just wasn't enough available girls and pizza for him but one hell of a recruiter..
 
Why??? Because he told the truth about Deon Thomas and Illinois cheating? Bob Knight backed him up, FWIW.

Name a school he has coached at where he wasn't involved in some type of controversy?

I cannot believe that the guy is still allowed to coach. But here he is, again, stuck in the middle of cheating. This time, however, it's with the FBI. They aren't push overs like the NCAA.

There is a good article about Pearl in USA Today. "He's managed to turn sleaze into an attribute." Which would be funny, except that it is not....
I guess that is the country we live in.... Sucks.
 
My two cents on Bruce Pearl: I loved him. He was great—super intense, super caring, pretty good teacher. He was only 33 at the time. Fun to be around, made every rep in every practice intense.

He did a no-no in the business by ratting on Jimmy Collins, and has been sort of an outsider ever since. Like any other industry, the insiders can make the life of an outsider hell. The things for which Pearl has gotten dinged are entirely not uncommon. I think Pearl is a bit antiestablishment. So dumb rules that everybody more or less breaks anyway? Yeah, he'll break them, too, and will be less discreet, maybe, and thematically unapologetic, surely. And I kind of admire this.

But he's very engaging and likable, and a very good coach, thus all of the second chances.

If you think about his career, think about this: His career gets started with Dr. Tom, who hired him to his staff after Pearl was a manager for him at BC. So Pearl is being groomed/mentored by one of the most ethical coaches the business ever had. Dr. Tom hated the shadiness of the game. So Pearl is a young coach in an environment that doesn't and won't cheat. But Pearl is hungry, and fearless, and this of course applies to recruiting. Iowa goes after Deon Thomas. Rightfully suspicious of Illinois' recruiting tactics, given Jimmy Collins' notoriousness of shady dealings—especially with the very shady Chicago Public League folks, Pearl decides fück these dudes, they need to be outed. So he outs them.

And it is Pearl who, arguably, bears the brunt of this. He's basically blacklisted, a pariah. What's to be expected from such an experience? In short, can't fight 'em. Join 'em.

The crazy thing is that people still hold this against Pearl, this Deon Thomas thing. Whenever this thing gets talked about, the Illini are almost always presented as the clear victims, the side of this more deserving of sympathy. The NCAA found a lot of bad shit in their investigation of Illini Basketball. But Pearl is the bad guy.

I get it, nobody likes snitches. Who's worse? The snitch or the cheat?

I hope this provides some context. Any time people are critical of Pearl in regards to his NCAA transgressions, I wish they would consider his full story. What happened 30 years ago surely resulted in creating a very wide grey area of any concept or notion of ethics, and without question it made him a mark.

And then there is the context that this basketball business at the top is dirty as fück. It's easy to judge Pearl because he's been named, but consider that dude is a mark. The NCAA needs some marks to make it appear as though they have some institutional control. Laugh out fücking loud.
 
My two cents on Bruce Pearl: I loved him. He was great—super intense, super caring, pretty good teacher. He was only 33 at the time. Fun to be around, made every rep in every practice intense.

He did a no-no in the business by ratting on Jimmy Collins, and has been sort of an outsider ever since. Like any other industry, the insiders can make the life of an outsider hell. The things for which Pearl has gotten dinged are entirely not uncommon. I think Pearl is a bit antiestablishment. So dumb rules that everybody more or less breaks anyway? Yeah, he'll break them, too, and will be less discreet, maybe, and thematically unapologetic, surely. And I kind of admire this.

But he's very engaging and likable, and a very good coach, thus all of the second chances.

If you think about his career, think about this: His career gets started with Dr. Tom, who hired him to his staff after Pearl was a manager for him at BC. So Pearl is being groomed/mentored by one of the most ethical coaches the business ever had. Dr. Tom hated the shadiness of the game. So Pearl is a young coach in an environment that doesn't and won't cheat. But Pearl is hungry, and fearless, and this of course applies to recruiting. Iowa goes after Deon Thomas. Rightfully suspicious of Illinois' recruiting tactics, given Jimmy Collins' notoriousness of shady dealings—especially with the very shady Chicago Public League folks, Pearl decides fück these dudes, they need to be outed. So he outs them.

And it is Pearl who, arguably, bears the brunt of this. He's basically blacklisted, a pariah. What's to be expected from such an experience? In short, can't fight 'em. Join 'em.

The crazy thing is that people still hold this against Pearl, this Deon Thomas thing. Whenever this thing gets talked about, the Illini are almost always presented as the clear victims, the side of this more deserving of sympathy. The NCAA found a lot of bad shit in their investigation of Illini Basketball. But Pearl is the bad guy.

I get it, nobody likes snitches. Who's worse? The snitch or the cheat?

I hope this provides some context. Any time people are critical of Pearl in regards to his NCAA transgressions, I wish they would consider his full story. What happened 30 years ago surely resulted in creating a very wide grey area of any concept or notion of ethics, and without question it made him a mark.

And then there is the context that this basketball business at the top is dirty as fück. It's easy to judge Pearl because he's been named, but consider that dude is a mark. The NCAA needs some marks to make it appear as though they have some institutional control. Laugh out fücking loud.
The fans of Tennessee basketball pined for Bruce to be rehired for several seasons. If you want a winner Bruce is that guy. I never thought what he did concerning NCAA violations was ever that egregious- it certainly never rose to the level of "fake classes."
 
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Was the cookout the worse thing that Pearl did?

I think duke Kansas and NC are dirty as hell. Payments grades and jobs for parents.

IMO what NC did wasthe worse thing anybody could do because it cheapens the university for every student.

To win at Iowa you need a Pearl type of Tony Bennett. I don’t see anything in between those two doing great things at a place e lime Iowa.
 
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