You can question Bruce Pearl for the allegations involving his program. You can point to his past transgressions. You can refuse to give him the benefit of the doubt for those reasons.
But you can’t criticize anything about how he has coached his team this season.
That’s not up for debate. Not what the Auburn coach has done on the floor, how he has kept this young team not only together but thriving — ranked nationally for the first time in 15 years, off to a scintillating 21-2 start without projected starters Danjel Purifoy and Austin Wiley, and headed to the school’s first NCAA Tournament since 2003.
He would be my pick for the National Coach of the Year if the award was to be decided now.
The colorful 57-year-old Pearl has Auburn all alone atop the SEC, two games clear of second-place Tennessee, and three up on preseason favorite Kentucky and its one-and-done freshmen. He has the Tigers tied with three other teams for the third-most wins (21) in the country, playing the kind of consistent brand of basketball everyone else in the conference has been unable to maintain.
He’s done it without the two aforementioned key players who averaged a combined 20.3 points and 9.4 rebounds a year ago as promising freshmen. With a team that finished four games under .500 in the SEC a year ago, and was picked ninth this year. Without Wiley and Purifoy, they are tiny, without a single starter taller than 6-foot-7 forward Anfernee McLemore. They have been prone to slow starts, but dynamic finishes, frequently rallying for come-from-behind victories. They have no superstar; instead four players are averaging double-figures, led by junior guard Bryce Brown at 17 points per game.
Of course, that’s only part of the story. Former Auburn assistant coach Chuck Person was one of four assistant coaches from four different prominent Division I programs arrested following an FBI investigation into mass corruption, bribery and fraud. He was indicted and is facing six federal charges. In November, he was fired. Two other members of the program, video coordinator Frankie Sullivan and special assistant Jordan VerHulst are on indefinite administrative leave.
Wiley and Purifoy haven’t played this year, because of their role in the allegations. Wiley has been ruled ineligible this season by the NCAA, but will be allowed to return next year. Purifoy is in limbo. Pearl has accepted blame, telling ESPN, “I’m responsible, ultimately. When there are negative things going on in our program, I’m responsible for that. And I didn’t come here to bring pain.”
Yet there have been reports Pearl hasn’t been overly cooperative with the school’s own investigation. While commending the job Pearl is doing as a coach, Auburn president Steven Leath recently told AL.com: “Clearly, Bruce knows that my expectation is that, sooner or later, he’s going to have to come in and talk to me and others on campus about what’s going on in the program, and we’re moving toward a solution on that, but that is an expectation.”
Add onto that, Pearl had run into trouble before, given a three-year show cause penalty by the NCAA after lying to investigators about rules violations, which included bringing a recruit to a cookout against rules, and told everyone there to keep it a secret.
Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs has been replaced by Allen Green, meaning Pearl’s future is now in the hands of someone who didn’t bring him aboard in the first place. There are no guarantees for Pearl, making the job he’s done that much more impressive, with the FBI investigation hanging over his head like an anvil that could drop at any moment, with his job security tenuous, with no guarantees what will happen when the NCAA’s Commission on College Basketball releases its findings in April.
Whatever happens after the season, Pearl should be commended for his work with this team. Go look at the other programs who had assistant coaches arrested — Arizona, USC and Oklahoma State — in this scandal. They certainly aren’t coming close to overachieving like Auburn.
Pearl could wind up losing his job, and he may deserve to. But right now, he’s been the best coach in the country.
Game of the Week
No. 3 Purdue at No. 5 Michigan State, Saturday, 4 p.m.
Get through this week unscathed, and the streaking Boilermakers may run the table in the Big Ten. First up is a home game against No. 17 Ohio State on Wednesday, followed by this showdown in East Lansing for 23-2 Purdue, which is riding a school-record 19-game winning streak. The Spartans were expected to be the dominant team in the conference after returning sophomore Miles Bridges, but it’s been their rival from West Lafayette, Ind. that has been the unquestioned top team in the league.
Seedings
1: Villanova, Virginia, Purdue, Michigan State
2: Xavier, Auburn, Arizona, Cincinnati
3. Duke, Kansas, Texas Tech, Ohio State
4. Clemson, Tennessee, St. Mary’s, Gonzaga
Stock Watch
Up: St. Mary’s
With the nation’s second-longest winning streak (behind Purdue) of 18 games and one of the premier big men in the country in Jock Landale, sharpshooting St. Mary’s looks to be a factor in March. The 13th-ranked Gaels have already knocked off West Coast Conference rival and No. 14 Gonzaga once — the two meet again Saturday night — and in the 6-foot-11 Aussie center, who is averaging a double-double of 22.8 points and 10.8 rebounds per game on an unheard of 65 percent shooting from the field, they have the kind of weapon few teams can handle.
Up: Shamorie Ponds
There is nothing quite like a city kid lighting up the Garden for St. John’s, as Ponds did Saturday afternoon in a stunning upset of fourth-ranked Duke. The 6-foot-1 southpaw from Brooklyn poured in 33 points along with seven rebounds and four steals — four days after he dropped 31 on No. 6 Xavier in a narrow defeat — as the skidding Red Storm snapped their 11-game losing streak. If he isn’t the Big East Player of the Week, there should be an investigation.
Down: Pittsburgh
At least St. John’s has the win over Duke. Pittsburgh, the only other power-conference team without a league victory, continues to wallow in ineptitude after a pair of lopsided losses, and are now 0-11 in the ACC. Even worse, only two of those setbacks have been by single-digits. Just think: Two years ago, the Panthers reached the NCAA Tournament, before Jamie Dixon left for TCU, his alma mater, and Kevin Stallings took over. So far, the former Vanderbilt coach has been a failure, going 4-25 in the ACC.
Down: Hamidou Diallo
The physically gifted wing from Queens may have hit a wall. Considered a potential lottery pick, Diallo has reached double-figures just once in his last six games for inconsistent Kentucky, and just three of his previous 10. Over the last week, as the Wildcats fell to on-the-bubble Missouri and nearly lost to cellar-dwelling Vanderbilt at home, Diallo managed just 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting. His overall numbers — 12.0 points on 43 percent shooting — are solid, but they have dropped in SEC play, especially lately.