The Section 103 Postgame Report.

[Vercingetorix]

I honestly don't believe that almost every other school would fire him right before the season like that.

IU fired Kelvin Sampson in the middle of the season. They were done with him the minute the allegations broke. The only reason they didn't dump him on the spot was they needed to have their lawyers work out the details.

 

[Sudeepvol]

IU fired Kelvin Sampson in the middle of the season. They were done with him the minute the allegations broke. The only reason they didn't dump him on the spot was they needed to have their lawyers work out the details.

Sampson didn't exactly do much for Indiana. Pearl built up enough equity at UT where not firing him immediately wouldn't be an unreasonable way to go about the situation. If all of this had happened in Pearl's second year, like with Sampson, then I'm sure he would probably be out.

 

[WesternKyVol]

The main thing the last five years have proven is that there's an enormous pent-up demand for good basketball in Tennessee -- a demand which Doug Dickey ignored forever. Pearl did a great job selling the program, but he was selling to customers who couldn't get their wallets out fast enough. Any competent AD ought to be able to parlay the kind of support Tennessee has demonstrated into a consistently competitive program. The sad thing is that we could have had this all along. The potential support from the fans an boosters has always been there. The support from the AD hasn't.

I respect this. But I just think many of you are underestimating how difficult it is to be good.

 

[Vercingetorix]

I respect this. But I just think many of you are underestimating how difficult it is to be good.

Depends on what you define by "good." If you mean a team with legitimate Final Four aspirations almost every year, then yeah, that's hard. But only a small handful of teams are at that level; the high rollers' club in basketball is a lot smaller than it is in football. But if you mean a team that makes the tournament most years and usually wins a game or two, then no, it shouldn't be that hard to be that good. With the support this team has, the facilities and arena we offer, the money we'll pay, the relatively easy access to all the talent in Atlanta, and the general indifference to the sport among most of the other schools in the conference, then it really shouldn't be hard to be at that level. That's about the level Pearl has us at now; it's generally about the level where UT basketball was before Doug Dickey took over as AD.

I think a lot of strong Pearl supporters are still spooked by Dickey's absolute indifference towards basketball. It doesn't happen to be that way. If Pearl is forced out, it doesn't automatically mean that Wade Houston and Buzz Peterson are coming back. Dickey's coaches were the anomaly, not Pearl.