Justice is Finally Done - Bruce Pearl is Fired!

One day after the end of the Illini basketball season (I'll have more to say about that soon), we Illini fans with older memories received some fantastic news. In the last six months, Bruce Pearl has had his name dragged through the mud courtesy of an NCAA investigation, lost $1.5 million in salary, was suspended from coaching for part of the SEC portion of Tennessee's schedule, and been humiliated in a first-round NCAA tournament loss. Now comes the cherry on the icing on the cake - Bruce Pearl has been fired as Tennessee coach for his unethical behavior (although the AP story still gets its history wrong - here's the correct version of what happened between Pearl and the Illini).

It's good to see that Pearl finally got what he deserved, and even though it took over 20 years, I'm glad to see Lou Henson and Jimmy Collins are vindicated, and maybe now Henson will get what he deserves - a spot in the Basketball Hall of Fame. And this is probably the best way to express Illini fans' feelings about you, Bruce Pearl:

L'shanah Tovah!

I'm not sure what's in store for me during Jewish calendar year 5771, but so far, it's off to a great start, and it keeps getting better. For Bruce Pearl, not so much:

"Parrish goes on to report that Pearl lied to NCAA assistant director of enforcement Kristen Matha when asked about the in-home event. Parrish's sources say the NCAA already had photographic evidence of Pearl and Craft inside his home at the time, which, if true, means Pearl was busted right away and not found out later."

It's ironic - not just in an Alanis Morisette way; it really is ironic - that Pearl, who got the Illini into hot water with the NCAA by (illegally) recording a conversation may now be undone by someone photographing him making illegal visits to a recruit.

Keep the good news coming!

Milestone #1 - Passed

Relax and rejoice, fellow Cubs fans - tonight's 5-1 win over the Cardinals means that our favorite team won't lose 100 games this year! While tonight's Reds' win officially eliminated the Cubs from the postseason, that win combined with our win over our hated rivals pushes the Cardinals 7 games back of the Reds, reducing their tragic number to 13. As for the Cards, you know things are going bad when a team can't score a run off of Jeff Samardzija.

Now, it's on to milestone #2 - getting the four wins necessary to finish with more wins than the unstoppable force that was the 2006 Cubs.

Where's The Fire?

Apparently there isn't going to be much fire coming from Knoxville. Bruce Pearl admitted giving "misleading and incorrect information" (i.e. "lying") to the NCAA during their investigation of the Tennessee basketball program, and as a result his bosses slapped him with a punishment so the NCAA would get off their backs. Pearl will have to forfeit $1.5 million in salary over the next five years and cannot recruit off-campus for a year. And if you look really closely, you can see the marks where the ruler hit his knuckles.

So let me see if I've got this straight - 21 years ago, Pearl lied to the NCAA investigators about Deon Thomas. Now, he lies to the NCAA investigators about his own program. And yet people come rushing out to defend him. I especially love this quote from the cited ESPN article:

"Pearl recorded Thomas, who by then has committed to Illinois, admitting that he had received a car from an Illinois assistant and turned the tape over to the NCAA. Though the NCAA never was able to back up Pearl's claim, the subsequent investigation revealed other ridiculously minor violations and Illinois was handed a one-year postseason ban because the NCAA would have looked foolish if they had investigated Illinois for a year and not punished them in some way."

(Italics mine. Oh, and some of the other quoted material may represent my interpretations of these events.)

In other words, Pearl's allegations were completely bogus, but he's still a good guy because he was a "whistleblower". Don't get me wrong - I think whistleblowers provide a great service to society, but only if they're telling the truth. If you're a lying whistleblower, it kind of defeats the purpose.

Remember how Kelvin Sampson took Oklahoma to the Final Four? No, you don't, because now when you think of him you think of how he drove the Indiana basketball program off a cliff with his illegal and unethical behavior. So let's hope that even if this is Pearl's only actual punishment, the incident helps change the perception of Bruce Pearl from wronged man to wrongdoer. After twenty-plus years of waiting for vengeance, that would still be pretty sweet.

There's Smoke. Now Let's See Some Fire.

Oh, please, let this be true! According to ESPN's report of a potential investigation into Bruce Pearl's Tennessee basketball program:

With its football program already under an NCAA probe, the University of Tennessee is facing an investigation into its men's basketball program.

NCAA representatives are checking, in part, excessive telephone calls and the use of unauthorized phones to contact recruits, sources told ESPN.com Thursday.

It would be perfect retribution if Bruce Pearl would get into hot water with the NCAA over telephone calls, considering that his illegal recording of a phone conversation with Illini recruit Deon Thomas helped set the Illini basketball program back for a decade and unfairly tarnished the reputations of Jimmy Collins and Lou Henson (this may be a reason why Henson has not yet been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame). Let's hope there's something to this story.

More Sports Schadenfreude

On August 11, in this very blog, I stated flat out that I'd be rooting for the Reds - or more accurately, rooting against the Cardinals - to win the NL Central this year. Also on August 11, the Cardinals finished a three-game sweep of the Reds in Cincinnati and moved into first place by one full game (two games in the loss column). It looked like I had planted the kiss of death on Cincinnati by throwing my support behind their team.

However, in the last three weeks since that "telling sweep", an amazing turnaround has happened - the Reds have won 14 of their last 18 games, and the Cardinals have lost 13 of their last 18 games, so that the Reds have gone from a one-game deficit to a commanding eight-game lead in the division race. Oh - and the Cardinals' poor stretch started with losing 2 of 3 in St. Louis to the Cubs. Yay, Cubs!

Even better - the Cardinals now find themselves five games behind the wild-card leading Phillies. And enjoyable as it was to see Matt Holliday play a fly ball off his nuts last October, it's obviously much better if the Cardinals miss the postseason, which is looking more likely every day.

Spoiler Alert!

At the end of play Monday, the Reds hold a one-game lead over the Cardinals for the NL Central lead, and the Giants hold a half-game lead over the Cardinals for the NL Wild Card.

The Cubs' records against those three teams so far this season:

Against Cincinnati: 3-10

Against San Francisco: 1-3

Against St. Louis: 5-4

So as of right now, the Cubs are keeping the Cardinals out of the postseason - not just by beating the Cardinals more often than not, but also by curling up into the fetal position against the two teams the Cardinals are chasing. When your team is 19 games under .500, ruining your archrival's season is the best you can hope for. Keep up the good work, Cubbies!

Eamus Gemini! Eamus Rutili!

Since the Cubs are mailing it in, I'm reduced to rooting for the Reds to finish ahead of the Cardinals in the NL Central, and for the Twins to finish ahead of the White Sox in the AL Central. This is the sports equivalent of the U.S. government's decision to back Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s - the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Unfortunately, this is how it has to be - unless the Bears can overachieve, until college basketball starts, schadenfreude is all I have to go on.