Tennessee dealing with fresh turmoil before Bruce Pearl's return Saturday

Auburn coach Bruce Pearl returns to Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday. He probably didn’t bring his orange blazer on this trip, but he brings a whole lot of baggage back to Tennessee.

Actually, most of the baggage belongs to the Volunteers fans. They have to figure out how to greet their favorite former NCAA felon, while simultaneously wrestling with how they feel about their current men’s basketball coach, Donnie Tyndall, as he gets pulled into the NCAA enforcement tar pit. Again.

“Obviously, this game will be even more important for our fans with coach Pearl coming back,” Tyndall said. “Should be a great environment.”

Should be a conflicted environment.

Tennessee fans loved Pearl’s success. They loved being ranked No. 1 for a minute in 2008 – the first time that had happened in school history. They loved beating Memphis and John Calipari. They loved beating Kentucky. They loved beating Florida. They loved going to the Sweet 16 three times and the Elite Eight once.

They loved the style. The fast tempo. The pressure defense. The attack mode.

And they loved the showman. The guy who revived Ray Mears’ orange blazer for big rivalry games. The guy who painted his bare chest in support of the Tennessee women. The guy who shook every hand and kissed every baby in order to fill seats in the cavernous gym.

They loved him even after the school fired him for major NCAA violations. Pearl lied to investigators about impermissible recruiting contacts he had, bringing down severe sanctions from Tennessee and the NCAA itself. He also lied about a player’s failed drug tests, saying he was sidelined with a back injury.

So there was ample reason for Tennessee to fire Pearl, and for the NCAA to administer a three-year show-cause penalty.

Despite that, a segment of the Tennessee fan base loved Bruce Pearl so much that they circulated a petition last year urging the school to hire him back – even though it had another coach, Cuonzo Martin. There were 30,000 signatures on the petition to send Cuonzo gonzo and replace him with Reformed Bruce.

Tennessee wasn’t going to do that, so Pearl landed at Auburn last spring -- bringing all that charisma and excitement back into the SEC, but at a different locale. And then Martin surprisingly bolted for California late in the hiring-firing cycle, in no small part because he felt unappreciated by the fan base. Seeing 30,000 fans sign on for your ouster in favor of a guy with an NCAA rap sheet can make a man feel unloved. Martin lasted just three seasons.

Jimmy Hyams, a Knoxville radio talk-show host and former writer with the Knoxville News-Sentinel, says not all those signatures were legit.

“There were a lot of repeat signatures and a lot of false names,” Hyams said. “But there was support for [Pearl] to return, no doubt.

“I’d say about 30 percent were in favor of rehiring him. I get a feeling about 30 percent of fans will cheer him in [Thompson-Boling] Saturday. Some will jeer him. And then I think Donnie Tyndall will get more cheers.”

The Tyndall twist that came down last week -- and got worse this week -- makes the situation all the more complex and conflicted. His old school, Southern Mississippi, announced it is self-imposing a postseason ban on the basketball program that is under investigation for alleged violations on Tyndall’s watch. That means there would be no Conference USA tournament for Southern Miss, and nothing after that.

Now, this could rank among the most hollow of self-imposed punishments – Southern Miss currently is tied for last in a 14-team league that only takes 12 teams to its conference tournament. And at 6-12, there is zero chance of an at-large bid to any national tournament thereafter. So it’s likely an appeasement maneuver ahead of the NCAA hammer coming down.

But no school self-imposes punishments if that school thinks it has done nothing wrong. Although the school has refused to make public any specifics of what it has learned so far, Southern Miss clearly believes the NCAA investigation has merit.

Then, Thursday, Southern Miss released more bad news in a statement: “In accordance with NCAA rules, senior Jeremiah Eason and junior Rasham Suarez are no longer eligible to participate for the Southern Miss men’s basketball team." The two were recruited by Tyndall out of College of Central Florida.

This is a huge problem for Donnie Tyndall. And for Tennessee.

Keep in mind, Tyndall already has an NCAA rap sheet – the place he worked before Southern Miss, Morehead State, was hit with sanctions in 2010. And Tyndall was involved in the infractions.

Among his quotes last spring, when the Morehead State issues came up after being hired at Tennessee: “I learned from it, I grew from it and I certainly never expect to go through it again.”

He’s going through it again. At a school that has gone through it before.

“It has caused fans to take a wait-and-see, cautious approach, instead of buying in,” Hyams said. “Tyndall has done a very good job coaching this group. Nobody can deny that. But Tennessee fans are questioning why they hired this guy when they knew what happened at Morehead State. Should they have known what happened at Southern Mississippi? Should Tennessee have done a better job vetting Donnie Tyndall?

“Donnie Tyndall is giving Tennessee reason to want to keep him. But depending what the NCAA says, Tennessee may not have a choice, in my opinion.”

A Yahoo Sports request to interview with Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart this week was declined. The school said it will have no further comment than the statement it released last week, which said: "It's not appropriate for us to comment on decisions by other institutions, nor do we have any other updates to provide."

So that clears everything up.

Tennessee could, in fact, be in the awkward position of firing a second basketball coach in four years for NCAA compliance reasons. And the guy who was there between the two cheaters took the first lateral move available out of town.

So Bruce Pearl returns to Knoxville at a weird time. Cheer him or jeer him, he’s Auburn’s guy now. And Tennessee appears to have a fresh set of NCAA problems to deal with, after enduring the issues Pearl left behind.