American collegiate basketball coach Bruce Pearl is in charge of the Auburn Tigers men’s basketball team.
Before that, Pearl oversaw the coaching staff at Southern Indiana, Milwaukee, and Tennessee.
In 1995, Pearl led Southern Indiana to a Division II national title, earning him the award for Division II Coach of the Year from the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
Bruce has led teams in Division I to one Final Four, ten NCAA tournament trips, four conference championships, and three conference tournament victories.
Pearl was selected Coach of the Year by Sporting News in 2006, and he was awarded the Adolph Rupp Cup the following year.
He also managed the Maccabi USA men’s basketball team, which won the gold medal in the 2009 Maccabiah Games.
Was Auburn’s basketball coach arrested during the Bruce Pearl controversy?
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Despite all the uproar, Bruce Pearl, the coach of the Auburn basketball team, was never arrested. But he has been involved in several controversies.
The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions fined the Auburn men’s basketball team for violations of the rules committed by former assistant coach Chuck Person.
The NCAA looked into Auburn after Person was imprisoned in 2017 on charges of federal fraud and bribery.
Chuck was given a 10-year show-cause term, former assistant Harris Adler was given a one-year show-cause term, and head coach Bruce Pearl was suspended for two games.
Following a protracted FBI investigation into college basketball corruption, the violations were found.
The person received $91,500 in bribes from a financial advisor in exchange for convincing potential student-athletes and their families to urge the players to commit to Auburn.
The person also provided cash benefits and incentives to two families of Auburn basketball players.
The infractions committee found that Pearl’s failure to monitor Person violated his responsibility as head coach. Pearl insisted that he supervise his assistants by NCAA regulations.
The committee also found that after understanding what Person was up to, Pearl neglected to ask him some important questions.
Brad Pearl NCAA Infractions Through Time
Regarding Aaron Craft, a high school student, and his family’s unauthorized trip to Tennessee for a barbeque at Bruce Pearl’s Knoxville home, the NCAA was looking into Bruce Pearl at the time.
Pearl advised everyone in attendance to be silent on the NCAA rules that prevented Craft from attending. He allegedly gave Craft’s father instructions to make up further information as well.
On September 10, 2010, Pearl acknowledged lying to the NCAA and breaking the law in the Craft case.
As a result, Tennessee penalized Pearl and his team with a delayed retention bonus and a $1.5 million pay cut over the following five years.
Three days after the Vols’ humbling defeat to Michigan, Tennessee fired Pearl on March 21, 2011, after discovering further NCAA infractions and a player’s violation of the school’s substance use policy.
On August 23, 2011, Pearl was given a three-year show-cause punishment for lying to the NCAA, which is good until August 23, 2014.
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Case of Bruce Pearl During the 1988–89 basketball season, Dean Thomas Pearl, who was Iowa’s assistant coach at the time, was also at the heart of an Illinois recruiting controversy.
Illinois and Iowa were both interested in signing Deon Thomas, a talented high school athlete from Chicago. When Thomas chose to enroll at Illinois, Pearl’s recruitment effort failed.
Then, depending on where Pearl made the call, she may have broken the law when she contacted the high school kid and recorded a conversation with Thomas.
Thomas seemed to imply that he did when Pearl questioned him about whether or not he had taken an SUV and cash from Illinois assistant coach Jimmy Collins.
Pearl later sent recordings of the audio and a note detailing the events to the NCAA. During the ensuing NCAA investigation, Thomas denied the allegations and claimed that the story was made up.
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