SEATTLE — It was late in Tennessee’s 82-72 victory Saturday against Gonzaga and Vols coach Bruce Pearl wanted a foul. Any foul. Now. Or sooner.
He certainly wasn’t getting them on his end, or so he thought. He screamed and railed to no avail.
Finally, he turned around to some sympathetic, orange-clad UT fans in the first few rows behind the bench.
“Is this unbelievable?” he asked. “SEC officials.”
“They don’t like you,” someone in the crowd answered.
“Yeah, they don’t like me,” Pearl said, grinning while sweat poured down his face. “But then, would you like me? I’m a jerk.”
Then he resumed ranting at the zebras.
Pearl to one of the officials: “Sometimes, there’s a thing called VERTICALITY. We can’t get a call on this end because he (Gonzaga coach Mark Few) got on you.”
America’s most colorful head coach brought his act to KeyArena Saturday and he deserved a standing ovation, an encore and three dozen roses afterward. It was a command performance by Pearl, and the only tragedy is that this will be one of the few times we’ll see him work up close.
Is there a more active head basketball coach in America? Pearl, 48, is constantly in motion. One of his players drives the lane and, in Pearl’s mind, is fouled — Pearl’s arms wheel as if he’s swimming the butterfly, then he slaps his hips and slowly turns his palms up in absolute disbelief when the whistles fall silent.
Silent, too, is Pearl, for one of the very few times in the game.
The silence lasts only for a moment, however, before he’s back at it: cajoling, screaming, pleading, cursing and even encouraging for 40 minutes of hell. It’s very possible that he outworks his players.
Pearl to reserve center Brian Williams: “You’ve got three ticky-tack fouls called on you. If you’re gonna foul, FOUL SOMEBODY.”
On one Gonzaga possession, the Vols’ Jordan Howell failed to switch properly on a screen, bringing out Pearl’s worst. On the next timeout, Pearl took Howell aside and read him what had to be one of the world’s most profane, frightening riot acts of the 21st century.
After the game, though, Pearl gave the senior guard a hug and added some soft words of encouragement.
“That’s Coach,” senior guard JaJuan Smith said. “He does his own thing. He jumps on a player and after the next play of the game’s over, he’s back to being your friend. I think that means a lot to a player. When he downs you, he always gives you credit when you do good. He’s not just a coach that criticizes you. It means a lot.”
Pearl is both a stern father to his players and a playmate. He’s been known to paint his upper body orange, don a headband, sit in the stands and scream his lungs out for the Tennessee women’s basketball team.
But he saves his most intense face for his own guys.
And his guys love him for it.
“That gets you fired up as a player,” Smith said. “You see your coach over there jumping up and down, turning red and on fire, that gives you a lot of energy on the floor.”
Something’s working. In 15 years coaching at three schools, Pearl is third on the list of winningest active coaches, at 364-103. He has never had a losing season. The worst season he’s had as a head coach is 16-13 in his first season at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, after which he finished 24-8, 20-11 and 26-6.
With the Volunteers, Pearl is 12-1 and has his team ranked 11th in the nation.
Pearl may be at his best, however, when his team is struggling. On Saturday, the Bulldogs chipped away at an 18-point Tennessee lead and trailed by five, 76-71, with 1:17 left.
Pearl called a timeout. Those close to the bench braced for Hurricane Bruce.
After talking with his assistants, Pearl entered the huddle.
And smiled.
“That’s Coach, too,” Smith said. “We could be down with under two minutes and he comes in and tells us a joke. He gets us laughing. He never lets us get tense. In the bigger games, he makes us more relaxed than the smaller games. When we’re supposed to be tense, he’s always got a joke for us.”
This year, Pearl and the Volunteers may be laughing all the way to the Final Four.
Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. For Sleeper[`]s blog, go to www.heraldnet.com/danglingparticiples.
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