I'm reading and hearing a lot of hopes that Iowa will go after Tennessee's Bruce Pearl to fill its men's basketball coaching vacancy.
What, Rick Pitino or Roy Williams weren't available?
You never say never in this racket (never, never, never - OK, sometimes you say it), but it doesn't make sense to me. From Pearl's perspective, that is.
Folks, he has a really good gig at Tennessee. Better the one that would exist at Iowa. In two short years, he's got it rolling. The state, other than Memphis and Vanderbilt fans, love him. He's making serious coin. He's got talent coming back, and he's reeling in more. He's coach of a Sweet 16 team, not a non-NIT team.
Plus, he isn't a job-hopper. He could have left Division II Southern Indiana several times in his nine years there, but to Division I jobs that were more dead ends than stepping stones. So he kept winning in Indiana and waited for a good move. He got it in Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He could have left there after the second of his four years, when he reached the NCAAs. But he was patient. After a Sweet 16 run in Year 4, his profile was better than ever before, and the SEC's Tennessee came calling.
So this is a guy who will leave Tennessee and all he's built there after two years to begin a rebuilding job at Iowa? Stranger things have happened, but I can't see it.
There's some sort of feeling in Hawkeyeland that if you ever lived or worked in Iowa, you automatically want to come back. For some, it's true. For others, things change and you find happiness elsewhere. If Kirk Ferentz departed Iowa tomorrow, you think Wisconsin's Bret Bielema would apply for the job just because it's his alma mater? It's the same deal with Pearl.
Besides, if Pearl keeps doing good things at Tennessee, in another couple years an elite program will come calling. If and when he leaves Knoxville, it will be for a move that clearly is forward, not parallel at best.