Bruce Pearl celebrates as NCAA show-cause expires
AUBURN -- It may be a quiet period on the college basketball recruiting calendar, but there was a whole lot of noise emanating from the Plains late Saturday night into Sunday morning.
Bruce is loose.
Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl's three-year NCAA show-cause penalty expired at midnight Sunday, ending the restrictions on his recruiting activities 159 days after he was hired to take over the beleaguered program.
An emotional Pearl, 54, greeted a crowd of approximately 50 Auburn fans outside Auburn Arena shortly before the clock struck 12. He posed for a group picture, which he joked "has got to be a violation," and jumped around in celebration with his players, shouting "free at last!" before heading upstairs to his office to begin making phone calls and, according to CBSSports.com, meet with four-star 2015 forward prospect Horace Spencer.
"This is really - this is special," Pearl said to the crowd. "March 18 was the night, that was the night when we got offered the grace, we got a chance to come back and coach. I'm grateful, I'm humbled and blessed to be your coach."
Pearl spoke with his parents, wife, Brandy, and his children, among others, on Saturday evening.
With one hour left on his penalty, Pearl spoke with the Advertiser about what the night meant to him.
"Is tonight significant? Sure. At midnight it'll be behind me," he said. "But I'll always know it and it'll always be a part of me."
Saturday night effectively ended an ordeal that began six years earlier, when Pearl, then the coach at Tennessee, hosted then prospects Aaron Craft, Josh Selby and Jordan McRae on an unofficial visit at his Knoxville home during a barbeque in the summer of 2008.
When the NCAA investigated the recruiting violations in 2010, Pearl initially lied and was eventually fired on March 21, 2011 and the NCAA imposed a three-year show-cause penalty on Aug. 23, 2011.
Craft, who went on to play four years at Ohio State, became the face of the ordeal, though Pearl called him "a victim" in the situation.
While working at SiriusXM radio during his nearly three years away from coaching, Pearl spoke with Craft, who signed as an undrafted free agent with the Golden State Warriors earlier this month, during Big Ten Media Days.
"We had a very, very nice conversation," Pearl said.
Pearl became the first coach with an active show-cause penalty to be hired by another school when Auburn hired him to a six-year deal worth $14.7 million on March 18. On April 22, Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs decided not to appeal Pearl's sentence, making Saturday night the end of the sanctions.
"Prior to my press conference I had a couple of meetings in campus that were very emotional, when I first got here," Pearl said. "Jay had all the coaches come meet me and welcome me and it was very emotional for me because here they were meeting a guy that lost his job for not telling the truth and willing to give me a second chance and be on the staff."
Saturday night's scene was similar to the celebration that greeted Pearl when he first arrived in Auburn five months earlier, with him jumping around, encircled by fans.
Pearl's staff has drastically changed the roster - during a radio appearance last week he said Auburn avoided a "potential disaster" - while he sat out his penalty.
Auburn landed its biggest recruit to date when top 60 prospect Danjel Purifoy committed to the Tigers Friday night.
Now Pearl has "catching up to do" and there's nothing holding him back.
He'll host an "Elite Camp" on campus this afternoon and be able to call all the high school and AAU coaches, players, and those associated with them, as he continues to rebuild the program.
"We've been functioning. We've been recruiting aggressively, intensely," Pearl said. "The biggest difference is I'll be able to deliver my own message."