re: Tide Hoops | Please Anchor

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Yea I don't hate Pearl at all

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Pearl has been an NCAA snitch, an NCAA pariah and now finds himself in NCAA purgatory. He’s under a cloud from an investigation that has taken away two of his best players, but he’s also 24-5 overall and 12-4 in the SEC. Were he almost anyone else doing what he’s done given the circumstances of Auburn’s season, he’d probably be a lock for the Naismith Award. But he’s Bruce Pearl, and he probably has no chance.

We don’t know whether the FBI has anything else that could tie back to Pearl. We do know that Pearl’s history suggests he knows better than to deliver sensitive information over the phone. In 1989, Iowa assistant Pearl secretly recorded a conversation between himself and Chicago high schooler Deon Thomas, who would later attend Illinois. The NCAA received a six-minute clip of the 14-minute call, and in that clip Pearl guided Thomas through a conversation regarding his recruitment by Illinois assistant Jimmy Collins. Pearl mentioned Collins promising $80,000 and a Chevrolet Blazer if Thomas would sign with Illinois. Thomas didn’t exactly respond in the affirmative, but he also didn’t deny the accusation. Depending on your reading of the participants and their perspectives, Pearl is either a whistleblower or a Machiavellian operator trying to get a player he wants declared ineligible at one school so that player would attend the school where Pearl worked. At any rate, Pearl’s actions got him blackballed from moving up in the coaching ranks for years. He wound up becoming the head coach at Division II Southern Indiana and stayed there from 1992-2001.

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