It's that time of year: College coach carousel!

Unlike Arkansas, you're in one of the toughest divisions in a major conference. And you're third on the pecking order in the athletic department, behind football and Pat Summit.

 

I wonder if Tennessee has any indication that Pearl is about to be hit with a show clause a la Bozeman, Bliss, Haskins... I would think he'd be close.

 

Bozeman, Bliss and Haskins committed such massive violations that a show cause was inevitable and richly deserved.

Pearl is closer to Kelvin Sampson in that his violation wasn't completely egregious, but he misled the investigators. Sampson didn't get hit with a show cause for his OU violations, but got tagged pretty bad for his IU violations because he was a repeat offender. Pearl doesn't have a repeat offender status.

The most interesting question is if Pearl gets a show cause order, does it prevent him from recruiting players? Sampson's show cause order prevents him from recruiting college players until November 2011. But if Pearl's show cause only applies to hiring him, why can't he pull a Bob Huggins, spend his time around the AAU circuits, get to know some players (like Huggins did with Bill Walker) and present himself to a desperate AD as a quick way to revive a program?

 

This is the first thing I think of WRT Fresno hoops:

 

Pearl calls this "The saddest day of my life."

Makes you want to shed a tear, doesn't it?

 

It blows my mind that some of the national sites and even the Knoxville site have stories up that make no mention of who could be a candidate to replace him.

 

Agreed. It's not like this was a surprise.

 

Is that worse than how some in our business report contract offers, and even hirings, based solely on rumor?

 

It was the same thing with the Oklahoma job when Capel was fired. If you're covering a team and the coach's job is in question, you had better have a list of names to throw out there when he leaves.

Hell, the Oklahoman came up with 64. Granted, it wasn't the same day Capel was canned.

 

What it says was Hamilton's hand was forced and he wasn't prepared for this. I'm guessing this came straight from the top.

 

That should give Hamilton the impetus to jump off the plank voluntarily before he is forced to walk it. But a guess here is that his contract calls for a payout if he is canned and that there is no out for the school in case of compliance failure.

 

Are there any facts behind such lists, or does a writer just throw out a bunch of names and hopes something sticks?