Rush The Court

The locals must call Knoxville, Tennessee “KnoxVegas” because, like its desert-bound brother, it’s a beacon of bad decision-making and snap judgments. How else could you explain the recent curse that has settled over the Tennessee Volunteers’ men’s basketball head coaching position?

New head coach Donnie Tyndall now faces an NCAA investigation into whether athletes under his watch at Southern Mississippi were given impermissible benefits. A Bleacher Report story by Jason King cited an anonymous source that alleges that basketball players were given scholarships and had certain living expenses despite not yet qualified as eligible players. The first-year coach did not address the report on this today, but he did suggest that he would cooperate fully with any NCAA investigation that follows.

The aftermath of that investigation could mean another drastically shortened Volunteers career on the sidelines at Thompson-Boling Arena. Any tangible proof that Tyndall knowingly violated NCAA rules would add another headstone to the creamsicle-colored graveyard in East Tennessee. But Tyndall won’t be the only qualified head coach to fall victim to the KnoxVegas curse. A look at Tennessee’s recent history suggests that this team cycles through coaches as though they were leasing Acuras instead of running one of the SEC’s powerhouse programs.

Before Tyndall, there was Cuonzo Martin – now head coach of the California Golden Bears. Martin took over a team that was under investigation by the NCAA and reeling from the early departures of Tobias Harris and Scotty Hopson to finish 19-15 in 2012; the same record as the embattled, departed Bruce Pearl before him. Despite facing the recruiting handicaps that followed Pearl’s ouster, Martin built the Vols back into an NCAA Tournament team by 2014 and showed the Knoxville faithful that a little patience can go a long way in college basketball.

Unfortunately for him, the fans who screamed the loudest didn’t want to wait. The most disgruntled of the bunch started an online petition to bring back Pearl in the winter of 2013 – the same coach who was waiting out year three of an NCAA show-cause penalty at the time. Though Martin downplayed the insulting nature of this response in the press, he didn’t hesitate to jump at the opportunity to ditch Knoxville while his coaching reputation was still intact. In fact, he did everything but kiss the ground beneath him when he landed in Berkeley this summer. It wasn’t a surprising move. His own players not only understood but commiserated with a move that could have been considered treason in another circumstance.

And then there’s Bruce Pearl, the origin of the curse that has settled over the eastern bend of the Tennessee River. Pearl’s fire-and-ice coaching tenure delivered the Volunteers to dizzying highs and terrifying lows with few creamy middles in between. The Vols went to six straight NCAA Tournaments under Pearl, advancing to the Elite Eight once and the Sweet Sixteen three times. He also committed major recruiting violations, lied to the NCAA about those violations, and tried to convince others who were in attendance for those violations to lie to the sport’s governing body as well.

This was a bad look and something no amount of big wins would wash over. The university took steps to discipline Pearl and his coaching staff internally, but the NCAA still slapped that crew with show-cause penalties five months after the lightning-rod coach had been fired. There’s no doubt that Pearl elevated the basketball program to new heights. He also cast a spotlight on the program that may prove hot enough to smoke out any coaches who have followed in his path. Whoever Tennessee hires in a post-Pearl world not only has to be squeaky-clean; they also have to be immediately successful. That’s a combination that will weed out several strong candidates in hopes of catching lightning in a bottle in the Volunteer State. It claimed Cuonzo Martin after three seasons. It may get Donnie Tyndall in year one.

But depending on what happens with Tyndall, Tennessee fans may be hoping for a return to the Buzz Peterson days anyway. A simpler time when coaches were forced out of Knoxville because they were just plain bad at their jobs – not because they were controversial.