NCAA's UT verdict expected today

KNOXVILLE - The University of Tennessee will get its verdict from the NCAA Committee on Infractions today.

Former Volunteers basketball coach Bruce Pearl confirmed to the Times Free Press late Tuesday afternoon that the NCAA had notified him that the report would be released "sometime tomorrow afternoon."

Pearl would not confirm an ESPN report that he would receive a multiple-year show-cause penalty and former assistants Tony Jones, Steve Forbes and Jason Shay would receive one-year penalties. He said he didn't know what his penalties would be.

UT met with the COI in June, and the usual window for a response that hands out additional sanctions is eight to 12 weeks.

Pearl was charged with unethical conduct in the Notice of Allegations UT received from the NCAA in February after the popular coach lied to NCAA investigators about the location of a photo with him and Aaron Craft, then a junior in high school. His assistants also were charged with failing to provide full and complete information to investigators.

The UT football program was implicated for two of the 12 major infractions alleged by the NCAA, both falling under former coach Lane Kiffin, who is about to begin his second season at Southern Cal after leaving the Vols following one season. The NCAA lumped four recruiting violations into one major infraction and charged Kiffin with failure to monitor.

The school self-imposed two years of probation in addition to some minor recruiting restrictions in both sports in its response to the Notice of Allegations it sent to the NCAA in May.

Show-cause penalties essentially are coaching bans that can severely damage the future of a coach hoping for a college job. When a coach receives such a penalty, any school that wants to hire him during the penalty's duration must "show cause" as to why it shouldn't receive any NCAA penalties.

Current Morgan State coach Todd Bozeman, who received an eight-year show-cause while at California, is the only coach who's received the penalty and returned to coach in NCAA Division I.

Pearl still is considering an offer to coach the Texas Legends of the NBA Development League, Jones is now the head coach at Alcoa High School and Shay is an assistant under Forbes at Northwest Florida State College.

Upcoming Events