Bruce Pearl is entertaining, but why is he still coaching in college?

The Midwest Sweet Sixteen in Kansas City is known for two high-profile programs – Carolina and Kentucky – and three coaches who despite winning a lot of games own tarnished resumes. The ABC crowd may still point to Roy Williams coaching at UNC, which was not punished by the NCAA in one of the nation’s most celebrated investigations.

But John Calipari, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson and especially Auburn’s Bruce Pearl have been in hot water thru the years.

Calipari has taken three different schools to the Final Four and two of those trips by Massachusetts and Memphis were vacated by NCAA violations later uncovered. Coach Cal has been squeaky clean at Kentucky, which always recruits great players due to its pedigree. But not the coach he faces Friday night or the one in his own league.

Sampson climbed the coaching tree from Montana Tech to Washington State to Oklahoma, where he still owns the highest winning percentage in school history. He left Norman in 2006 for Indiana, eventually fired there for breaking enough NCAA rules to leave the program on probation and banning him from college coaching for five years before he resurfaced at Houston.

Auburn’s Pearl is the biggest character in Kansas City after his controversial career that began as a tainted assistant coach. As head coach at Tennessee, he led the Vols to six straight NCAA tournaments and three SEC regular-season titles. He admitted lying to the NCAA about recruiting practices and was fired at Knoxville, eventually receiving a three-year show cause, during which he became a hilarious analyst for ESPN, which is funny in itself.

In five years at Auburn, he has twice taken the Tigers back to the NCAA tourney after a 14-year drought. This time, the coach with nine lives has evaded the Federal probe into bribing recruits, which got assistant coach Chuck Person fired and fined and could lead to jail time for the former Auburn and NBA star.

When the university conducted its own investigation into the matter, Pearl refused to talk to the Auburn-appointed attorney, a move that reportedly had his job in jeopardy. But here he is with one of the hottest teams in the country taking on the Tar Heels Friday night, still laughing and telling bettors to take the over in what promises to be a high-scoring affair. Go Figure.

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