Does anybody else miss Bruce Pearl?

#101
#101
Why is this Pearl vs CCM...enough. I love Bruce and he did SO MUCH and a lot of people magically forget its crazy. Everyone thought he was the greatest thing on earth, he messed up and deserved to be fired but don't pretend what he did never happened, it was magical. With that being said, he isn't here, no point in saying Bruce would have done this "here" and CCM "there", just stop already. Amazing win tonight, let's talk about that.
 
#102
#102
Bruce did a great job rebuilding the program till the very end. I appreciate what Bruce did, but I hated what he did to the program. CCM is the coach, I'm happy with him, and I think we have a potential star right now. Time to move on and enjoy this season.
 
#104
#104
volinreallife said:
What has he shown here and before that makes you think that?
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He took a team that was projected to finish 11th and has a chance to tie for 2nd.

Maymon has become a 1st team All SEC player under him. Trae has improved immensely. He got Jordan McRae to buy in mid year.

This team has shown incredible improvement from December when they bought in.

His recruiting for 2013 is looking really good. He's in on a ton of good players.

He improved MO State from 11 wins to tourney champs in two years.
I love his always positive attitude. I love his defense first attitude. His offensive sets are looking better.

To be honest, there's not a lot to dislike.
 
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#106
#106
A few points:

1. People tend to trivialize what Pearl did. He lied to the governing body of college athletics. He tried to get a recruit and his parents to back up his lie. He committed a major violation in an attempt to dodge a secondary violation. It wasn't about hamburgers and hot dogs, it was about failure to be truthful. If he'd admitted he had them over, chances are very good he'd still be the coach.

2. It does not matter what other schools allegedly did. It's all about what the NCAA can prove. In this case, they didn't even need to do that as Pearl confessed after the fact.

3. No matter what, he wouldn't be coaching at UT this year. He was slapped with a show-cause. If anything, retaining him would have brought about even harsher penalties. Also, Hopson and Harris would still be gone. You think they would have returned to a team under severe NCAA sanctions? No chance. You could also have scratched off any major recruits wanting to come here. When he told that lie, he killed all the progress he had brought to UT. He may have taken us to new heights, but keeping him would have brought us to new lows.

4. How much progression did Hopson show under Pearl? Zero. Pearl could bring in talent, but he could not coach up their skills. He had no idea on how to coach a player's weaknesses and help them get better. He was a great showman and a spectacular salesman, but he was only an average coach. What really killed him IMO was recruiting outside his system. He became too enamored with star rankings and got away from the style of ball he could coach. If he had kept recruiting to his system, we might have been even more successful.

5. Pearl brought something to UT that we needed at the time. Excitement. I don't want to undervalue his accomplishments, but I'm also not willing to turn a blind eye to what he brought upon himself and the university. I appreciate his time here, but I do not miss him. If CCM proves he can coach the kids up, which he has done so far this year, then we have taken a step up. People are crying about the NCAA tournament when, at the beginning of the year, no one would have given us a shot in hell of making it. This team has overachieved. You're fooling yourself if you don't see that. CCM has coached these young men up and deserves to be praised for it.
 
#108
#108
zjcvols said:
He took a team that was projected to finish 11th and has a chance to tie for 2nd.

Maymon has become a 1st team All SEC player under him. Trae has improved immensely. He got Jordan McRae to buy in mid year.

This team has shown incredible improvement from December when they bought in.His recruiting for 2013 is looking really good. He's in on a ton of good players.

He improved MO State from 11 wins to tourney champs in two years.
I love his always positive attitude. I love his defense first attitude. His offensive sets are looking better.
To be honest, there's not a lot to dislike.
Click to expand...

First bold: How can you say that when 3/4 of the volnation fanbase believe he hasn't?

Second bold: I don't see it, but that is my opinion. I think there defense has improved greatly, but not the offense.

Third: Can't disagree with the defense first attitude. I love playing D. The offensive sets I just don't see getting any better.
 
#111
#111
volinreallife said:
First bold: How can you say that when 3/4 of the volnation fanbase believe he hasn't?

Second bold: I don't see it, but that is my opinion. I think there defense has improved greatly, but not the offense.

Third: Can't disagree with the defense first attitude. I love playing D. The offensive sets I just don't see getting any better.
Click to expand...

The problem isn't whether Trae is a good basketball player or if he has improved from last year. Look at his shooting percentages to see that. It's whether's he is a good PG or not, which is a different.

Are they were we need to be? No. But they are getting there. They space better, they get the ball inside better, they are actually running the offense, not jogging it.
 
#113
#113
zjcvols said:
He took a team that was projected to finish 11th and has a chance to tie for 2nd.

Maymon has become a 1st team All SEC player under him. Trae has improved immensely. He got Jordan McRae to buy in mid year.

This team has shown incredible improvement from December when they bought in.

His recruiting for 2013 is looking really good. He's in on a ton of good players.

He improved MO State from 11 wins to tourney champs in two years.
I love his always positive attitude. I love his defense first attitude. His offensive sets are looking better.

To be honest, there's not a lot to dislike.
Click to expand...

Yep. I think I've seen enough to be confident that, as a basketball coach, Martin is an upgrade. The movement on offense. The effort on defense. Remember last year when the announcer said he couldn't tell whether we were playing man or zone because we weren't moving around enough? You'd expect Martin to have a higher ceiling as a basketball coach, given that he started out as a tough as nails player and Bruce started out in a mascot's costume. I don't even mean that as a shot at Pearl; it's just the truth. Pearl's exactly what this program needed a few years ago, but his limitations as an actual coach became apparent awhile ago. Now we need a basketball coach. And Martin looks like he's got a shot to be a good one.

A lot of people are going to hold it against him for a long time that he came from Missouri State. I think that's largely a Dooley-driven backlash, and I can't say that I blame them. Martin's not going to get the benefit of the doubt. But if he can recruit at all, he won't need it.
 
#115
#115
zjcvols said:
The problem isn't whether Trae is a good basketball player or if he has improved from last year. Look at his shooting percentages to see that. It's whether's he is a good PG or not, which is a different.

Are they were we need to be? No. But they are getting there. They space better, they get the ball inside better, they are actually running the offense, not jogging it.
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Is that not the problem though since he is running point? People believe he has not improved as a point guard. Do you feel the same?
 
#116
#116
Vercingetorix said:
Yep. I think I've seen enough to be confident that, as a basketball coach, Martin is an upgrade. The movement on offense. The effort on defense. Remember last year when the announcer said he couldn't tell whether we were playing man or zone because we weren't moving around enough? You'd expect Martin to have a higher ceiling as a basketball coach, given that he started out as a tough as nails player and Bruce started out in a mascot's costume. I don't even mean that as a shot at Pearl; it's just the truth. Pearl's exactly what this program needed a few years ago, but his limitations as an actual coach became apparent awhile ago. Now we need a basketball coach. And Martin looks like he's got a shot to be a good one.

A lot of people are going to hold it against him for a long time that he came from Missouri State. I think that's largely a Dooley-driven backlash, and I can't say that I blame them. Martin's not going to get the benefit of the doubt. But if he can recruit at all, he won't need it.
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Actually, it's kind of worked out perfectly. With Pearl, despite the nice Elite Eight run, I think we maxed out a little bit as a program. I think it would have looked like Gene Keady's career. Lots of wins, lots of tourney berths, but overall, not a ton of substance in terms of championships.

Martin has a higher ceiling. I think he's exactly what the program needs to become elite. Discipline, defense, and better half court offense is what everyone complained about Bruce. Martin brings all of that.
 
#117
#117
VolsFan4Ever-11 said:
Go read bro, but coming from a guy who really doesn't see what CCM has done, doubt very seriously your reading comprehension is good enough, bro.
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Your probably right. My reading comprehension is terrible, but I don't want to stop you from going ahead and bringing out your act scores.
 
#118
#118
volinreallife said:
Is that not the problem though since he is running point? People believe he has not improved as a point guard. Do you feel the same?
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I disagree with those that doesn't think he's a very good PG. Is he completely there? Of course not. But I think he has showed a lot of improvement. Better passer, better dribbler, better shooter. Does a much better job controlling the pace.

He's also in year 2 of being a point guard.
 
#120
#120
volinreallife said:
First bold: How can you say that when 3/4 of the volnation fanbase believe he hasn't?

Second bold: I don't see it, but that is my opinion. I think there defense has improved greatly, but not the offense.

Third: Can't disagree with the defense first attitude. I love playing D. The offensive sets I just don't see getting any better.
Click to expand...

The offense hasn't improved because we don't have any scorers. The fact that a one-dimensional three-point specialist like McBee plays so many minutes is a giant flaming indicator that the staff has no confidence that points are coming consistently from anywhere else.

Turnovers are an awful problem, but that's what you'd expect when you've spent years recruiting athletic combo guards. Basic ballhandling is abysmal. That problem isn't going away until we get different players in here.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out why we don't have any real scorers on the roster.
 
#121
#121
zjcvols said:
I disagree with those that doesn't think he's a very good PG. Is he completely there? Of course not. But I think he has showed a lot of improvement. Better passer, better dribbler, better shooter. Does a much better job controlling the pace.

He's also in year 2 of being a point guard.
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I agree. To much blame is placed on him for a lot of problems this team has.

What kills me the most is when people get mad at him for driving and getting stripped or jacking up a bad shot when our wings are shooting 4-25 from behind the three. The guy is trying to make something happen and that is what it takes sometimes.
 
#123
#123
volinreallife said:
I agree. To much blame is placed on him for a lot of problems this team has.

What kills me the most is when people get mad at him for driving and getting stripped or jacking up a bad shot when our wings are shooting 4-25 from behind the three. The guy is trying to make something happen and that is what it takes sometimes.
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He doesn't have really anybody else to go to other than Maymon on a consistent basis. Yeah, he forces things. But he doesn't have a lot of options sometimes.
 
#124
#124
Vercingetorix said:
The offense hasn't improved because we don't have any scorers. The fact that a one-dimensional three-point specialist like McBee plays so many minutes is a giant flaming indicator that the staff has no confidence that points are coming consistently from anywhere else.

Turnovers are an awful problem, but that's what you'd expect when you've spent years recruiting athletic combo guards. Basic ballhandling is abysmal. That problem isn't going away until we get different players in here.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out why we don't have any real scorers on the roster.
Click to expand...

We do have real scorers on offense Maymom and stokes can get 10 to 15 a game easy.

Now our young guys such as Golden and McRae are getting there. I think they could be great.

I believe richardson will be a great 10 to 18 foot scorer, but anything beyond that is up in the air.
 
#125
#125
aboles922 said:
The reason I don't miss him is this is the first Tennessee team I've seen in awhile that has actually overachieved from an athletic standpoint.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
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The reason I don't miss him is that the dark cloud of the ncaa is gone and we have a good coach and team now with Cuonzo.
 
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