The Short List: Bruce Pearl

What about Ben Jacobson or Steve Lavine? Lavine hasn’t coached in awhile, and he may want to get back in the game, and I dont need to say anything about Jacobson.

is to ask Pearl “What is it going to take for you to want this job” and then give it to him. $3 Million? Sure, why not, we can just get rid of the baseball program.

I don’t think Barta was at the women’s game in Cali. Grace and Ironside interviewed him on the radio right before the trophy presentation in Omaha. He announced during that interview that he had just learned that the women won. It was a really good interview BTW.

how so many Hawk fans think established, successful coaches like Pearl, Dixon, Calipari, etc would even consider coming to Iowa. There is a reason our last 2 hires came from mid-major schools.

…per many an Illini fan.

My father-in-law hates – hates - Pearl, and has “warned” me many times about how he would be a bad hire for Iowa and that he’s a slimeball and not the kind of guy we’d want running our program. As a fairly high-powered attorney in Champaign at the time, he worked very closely with the Pearl/Thomas case back in the day, and has said that there were a lot of things about Pearl and his actions that never really came to light. Of course, he’s never really said anything as to what those actions might have been, but just that “trust me Todd, he’s a very dishonest man and did some things that were really dishonorable…” and so on. I never say a word in retort or anything; it’s not like I can change his opinion, and it’s not worth even getting into anything remotely resembling an argument/debate about it. I merely stand very firm in my desire to have BP as out head coach, and how I think he’d be great.

Anyway, HS is probably right – it ain’t happening.

Crap.

who wears an orange suit like that is not the kind of hire we need at Iowa. I don’t give a shit that it is for school pride, it is just plain assed ugly. On top of that he can stay at Tennessee. The entire ESS EEE SEE is dirty and that is the only way they know how to do business in that conference. It is as bad as New York Politics. DIIIIIRRRRRRTTTTYYYY. I don’t want this man’s stench to permiate into Carver Hawkeye. I wish I knew the solution, but frankly Iowa is no man’s land when it comes to hoops. Football is King, Wrestling is the Crown Prince, and basketball has become the Court Jester. The only thing I know is that Iowa needs a very charismatic person to become the face of the program and the fan base is gonna have to be patient.

I feel (and I could be wrong) that just hiring Pearl would automatically create an absurd jump in attendance (at least initially) by a fanbase that is finally done just being happy with football and wrestling. Just a thought.

I would think Tennessee, post Lane Kiffin, would do anything within reason to keep Pearl, if only to avoid suffering another PR black-eye with a coach leaving. As HS mentions, Pearl has basically built the Vols mens bball program and taken them to, for Tennessee, unprecedented heights. I don’t see the AD letting Pearl go, assuming Pearl even wants to, without a fight, one that would take Iowa out from purely $$$ reasons.

Plus, FWIW, I remember listening to an interview Pearl gave around the time of the Kiffin debacle and he all but said he wasn’t leaving Tennessee, that it had “become [his] dream job”. Now, that doesn’t mean much, but his tone and they way he said it (and the other things he said about the job) made me think he was being honest. Like Ferentz, he wasn’t saying never, but it would take a hell of a lot to persuade him to leave a place he really enjoys.

is about as likely as Ferentz leavng Iowa for Penn State.

ain’t happening.

Tennessee’s fans, no matter how happy they are with Pearl, will forget about him as soon as Vols football gets back to respectability. Go back to Iowa’s Rose Bowl season’s under Fry; do you remember basketball apathy at Carver? Nope, Iowans care about their hoops, too. NKI makes a good point about the culture of recruiting/competition in the SEC: it’s a dirtier pool than the Big Ten, and with Calipari in a position of power it’s only going to get worse.

Tennessee’s fans don’t forget about Bruce Pearl once football season comes around, certainly not anymore. Given the decline of the football success and the increased success of the Basket Vols, fans are certainly following the basketball program much more closely now. While we certainly don’t have the tradition of other schools, Bruce Pearl is constantly building that tradition himself, something he appears to be relishing in. Remember, we beat the two best teams in the nation — Kansas and Kentucky — at our home court.

With regards to coaching and Calipari .. the SEC hasn’t been such a hot-spot of malign in the basketball department in recruiting; what issues there have been are generally cleared up before the season begins or are not pinned to a school during the process, though certainly with Calipari the “integrity-o-meter” took a sharp blow. But Pearl has been forced to recruit against Cal since being at Tennessee with Cal across the state at Memphis and playing a home-and-home against the Vols.

Also, while I have no doubt that your stadium can rock when it’s on, TBA can rock with the voices of over 20,000 fans hopping around singing Rocky Top when it is on; something which happens much, much more often with Pearl under the hood.

Pearl also has his best recruiting class coming in this off-season, a #8 (I think) rated class by ESPN with Tobias Harris, Trae Golden, and Jordan McRae. It’s by far his most talent-rich class to date.