Ironic matchup rekindles old story with coach Pearl

By the time No. 1 Illinois' game against Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the Sweet 16 mercifully arrives Thursday, everybody will know what UW-Milwaukee coach Bruce Pearl did to the Illini 16 years ago.

The story has been written over and over, facts and innuendo and rumor and theory mixed into a fascinatingly sordid package.

After derailing his career 16 years ago, Bruce Pearl should be a hot candidate again. (AP)

It was first written in 1989 when Pearl, then an assistant at Iowa, taped a conversation with a recruit that triggered an NCAA investigation into the Illinois program. The fallout was spectacular, from Illinois' NCAA probation to the derailed careers of several coaches, including Pearl, who was blacklisted and ultimately forced to start over at an obscure Division II school.

The fallout continues to land, with the Sweet 16 dominated by the history between Pearl and Illinois and the irony of their meeting in Chicago. The history lesson has obscured more than this fabulous NCAA Tournament. It has obscured the larger question:

Did Bruce Pearl do the right thing in 1989?

Answer: Absolutely.

The defense that there is a code of honor among coaches is no defense at all. There is no code of honor among coaches. Some unofficially interview for jobs that aren't vacant. Some cheat on the recruiting trail. Some work referees incessantly to get an advantage over the poor sap on the other bench.

And they report each other to the NCAA all the time. It's routine, and more than that, it's necessary. If we as college basketball fans are serious about rooting out cheating in college sports, we need honest coaches to report dishonest coaches.

Was Pearl an honest coach? That issue has been debated since 1989 and was again brought up this week by the Chicago Sun-Times, which summarized its original coverage of the 1989 Pearl-Illinois incident with an attack-dog story that painted Pearl as a jilted, dishonest coach.

According to the paper, Pearl paid a friend of the Illinois recruit at the heart of this story, Deon Thomas, to keep tabs on Thomas. In an interview with the paper, Thomas said Pearl offered to "double any offer you get from any other school" to sign with Iowa.

Those are ugly, ugly allegations. If the NCAA looked into those allegations, it found nothing. Neither Pearl nor Iowa was implicated. Neither, for that matter, was Thomas. The NCAA was unable to verify the contents of his taped call with Pearl when it was suggested Thomas had been offered $80,000 and a Chevy Blazer to choose Illinois.

But the NCAA found other violations at Illinois, and a lack of institutional control. The Illini, a Big Ten powerhouse that won 27 games and reached the Final Four in 1989, was banned from the 1991 NCAA Tournament. One year later Illinois was 13-15.

At Illinois, Bruce Pearl was the villain. He still is. Yet Illinois fans remain in love with ex-coach Lou Henson, whose program drew the NCAA's wrath all those years ago. That's a depressing statement about human nature.