FanHouse BrucePearl

Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl has apologized for telling a joke in which he contrasted some members of his team as being from "the hood" and others from parts of Tennessee "where they wear the hood."

In an effort to talk about something college basketball-related other than scandals in the summer, let's talk best current coaches. We'll attempt to order the top 25 current coaches in the nation. This is about the present and the future, not the distant past. What a guy did in the mid-90s doesn't matter near as much as the direction his program is currently headed. Past pedigree also matters, to an extent. For the perfect mix of past accomplishments with present achievement and a paved road for future success, look no further than the man atop the list.

It took perhaps a little longer than expected but Kansas State finally landed it's new athletic director Monday.

The school introduced 38-year-old John Currie, the University of Tennessee executive associate athletic director, as the new leader of the Wildcats' athletic department to conclude its three-month search. In addition to being responsible for UT's fundraising, ticketing, public relations, media relations, marketing and broadcast and Internet initiatives, Currie also managing the coaching search in 2005 that brought Bruce Pearl to the Vols.

Bruce Pearl seems like a pretty intense dude. He's willing to paint himself orange and run around Knoxville, Tenn., shirtless, for one thing. For another, he yells a lot. Well, on Thursday night against South Carolina, he was rocking a blazer-white T-shirt combo. And at one point during the first half, he ripped said blazer off. Brent Musberger noticed, too. Enjoy.

Tennessee spent the first half of Sunday's game against Florida showing that it knew two things about the outcome of this game: The winner would be tied with South Carolina for first in the SEC East and find themselves on the right side of the bubble watch heading towards the SEC Tournament.

The second half was a different story. The Gators outscored the Vols 42-34 in the final 20 minutes, cutting the lead to three points with 54 seconds remaining. But Tennessee managed to hold on for a 79-75 win, hitting just enough free throws to stave off the Gators.

So where does this leave the SEC?

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There is a SportsCenter commercial with Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt where Kenny Mayne fires off puns that use the coach's name and team, only for Summitt to respond that she's got "this coaching thing down pat."

I concur.

Thursday night, Summitt became the first Division I coach, men's or women's, to reach 1,000 wins as her Volunteers beat up on Georgia 73-43.

An odd rumor bouncing around the past week had Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl in play for the future Wizards vacancy. Nothing was ever solid -- the only real connection seems to be Washington GM Ernie Grunfeld's Volunteer history and a smattering of talk that Pearl was considered a year ago as Eddie Jordan's tenure became more tenuous.

The rumor was news to Pearl on Wednesday, and the coach dismissed the idea he was a candidate. Today, ESPN.com's Marc Stein reports Pearl isn't a serious option, as the Wizards will be looking for a bigger name with pro experience.

Washington is quietly confident that it will have no shortage of good applicants when it decides it's time to choose a permanent successor to Eddie Jordan, with the Wiz believing, among other things, that the attractiveness of the job and the city where they play has only been enhanced by Barack Obama's forthcoming installment as the nation's 44th president.

Obama as an incentive to take the D.C. job seems odd, and misplaced. Regardless, the job is attractive. The Wizards are no longer a league-wide punchline, and the roster has more strengths than a lot of other teams. To me, a defensive-minded coach makes sense: a team with a remotely free Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison will score a-plenty. Even last year, with Brenden Haywood playing awesome and Antonio Daniels starting, the team's defense was mediocre. The team needs new eyes on that end, and perhaps a half-court style that allows the efficient D.C. assault to dominate.

An odd rumor bouncing around the past week had Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl in play for the future Wizards vacancy. Nothing was ever solid -- the only real connection seems to be Washington GM Ernie Grunfeld's Volunteer history and a smattering of talk that Pearl was considered a year ago as Eddie Jordan's tenure became more tenuous.

The rumor was news to Pearl on Wednesday, and the coach dismissed the idea he was a candidate. Today, ESPN.com's Marc Stein reports Pearl isn't a serious option, as the Wizards will be looking for a bigger name with pro experience.

Washington is quietly confident that it will have no shortage of good applicants when it decides it's time to choose a permanent successor to Eddie Jordan, with the Wiz believing, among other things, that the attractiveness of the job and the city where they play has only been enhanced by Barack Obama's forthcoming installment as the nation's 44th president.

Obama as an incentive to take the D.C. job seems odd, and misplaced. Regardless, the job is attractive. The Wizards are no longer a league-wide punchline, and the roster has more strengths than a lot of other teams. To me, a defensive-minded coach makes sense: a team with a remotely free Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison will score a-plenty. Even last year, with Brenden Haywood playing awesome and Antonio Daniels starting, the team's defense was mediocre. The team needs new eyes on that end, and perhaps a half-court style that allows the efficient D.C. assault to dominate.

This week, FanHouse is taking an early look at the top teams heading into 2008 with a BlogPoll decided on by our college hoops bloggers. To help with the team capsules, we've brought in some of the top fan bloggers around the internets to give us insights on their teams.

Today, we have enlisted RBK of the BruceBall Blog to break down the Tennessee Volunteers.

The Tennessee Vols are coming off of back-to-back Sweet Sixteen appearances under Coach Bruce Pearl, and last season's 31 wins were tops in the program's history. Tennessee fans were disappointed in the finish, hoping that the 2007-2008 Volunteers would be the first ever to break through to the Elite Eight. It was not meant to be, and this year's Vols appear to be in somewhat of a transition mode after the loss of three senior guards including the SEC's all-time three-point shot leader, Chris Lofton.