NCAA: Bruce Pearl Already Finding Gems At Auburn
How did a three-year recruiting ban brought on by past recruiting violations affect Bruce Pearl in his new coaching job?
Well, let’s just say that the Auburn Tigers’ football program, even as a national powerhouse, would probably be thrilled to recruit as strongly as Pearl did during the first weekend he was allowed to sign players for the Auburn men’s basketball team.
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Wasting no time whatsoever, Pearl took less than four full days, between Friday, Aug. 22 and Monday, Aug. 25, to secure one of the nation’s
for 2015.
Pearl’s recruiting bonanza comes three years after the second-fastest head coach to reach 300 victories in NCAA history, the first coach to lead the Tennessee men’s squad to a top national ranking and within a possession of the Final Four (at Pearl’s previous stop) and the two-time SEC Coach of the Year was given a three-year show-cause injunction for lying to the NCAA about phone conversations with potential recruits in excess of the number of calls permitted by NCAA rules.
That ban ended last Saturday, Aug. 23.
Just three days later, Pearl had suddenly put Auburn back on the men’s national basketball map after landing a trio of highly touted recruits that probably delighted Auburn’s most famous basketball alum, outspoken TNT analyst and former NBA MVP Charles Barkley, who at an Auburn reunion event in June, was openly critical of the NCAA and highly supportive of Pearl.
Two of those talents — Danjel Purifoy and Horace Spencer — are rated in the 2015 top 60 by 247Sports. Auburn, along with the likes of national mainstays Arizona, Duke, Florida, Louisville, Ohio State, Syracuse and UCLA is one of just eight programs to get multiple recruits rated that high.
Pearl’s third recruiting coup of the extended weekend was no slouch either, in transfer T.J. Dunans, who is widely regarded as the best junior college guard in the country.
"Barkley appeared to be speaking fairly, as an objective analyst rather than as a biased ex-Auburn star, when he came to Pearl’s defense and said, “I thought he got screwed by the NCAA. He did not get a fair deal with the NCAA. I’m not a big NCAA fan as you can tell. What happened to him was really unfair.”"
Yet there are sure to be opinions on either side in the wake of how quickly Pearl was able to improve the short-term outlook for Auburn basketball.
Some may agree with Barkley and note that the allegations Pearl and Tennessee were penalized for were of a minor nature, especially in relation to what many other programs have done (and in some cases, gotten away with).
Others might suspiciously raise red flags over how a head coach coming off of a three-year, NCAA-imposed probation could immediately land such an impressively good draft class after working for ESPN prior to taking his next head coaching job.
But unless Pearl comes under investigation again, we can only go by what is actually taking place over assumptions. As far as that goes, Pearl currently has a fresh start with no further accusations currently against him.
And however he did it this time, Pearl, as of now, seemingly has Auburn hoops back on track toward a very bright future as cleanly and as quickly as possible.