Bruce Pearl has never done an insignificant thing in Knoxville.

Former Tennessee and current Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl (Photo: Knoxville News Sentinel)

Why would Saturday be any different?

The polarizing, love-him-or-hate-him coach dominated the headlines for much of his six-year tenure as Tennessee’s basketball coach, and no one expects the now-Auburn coach’s Saturday return to Thompson-Boling Arena to be any different.

GoVols247 has spent the past week interviewing several of those closest to Pearl throughout his time with the Vols —Â some of his former staffers and players —Â and asked them what reaction they hoped and expected Pearl would receive for Saturday’s return.

Rather than get in the way, let’s allow the words of those men to do the talking.

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MARK PANCRATZ

Pearl connection: Played for Pearl at Wisconsin-Milwaukee for four seasons and became the heartbeat of a Sweet Sixteen team, endearing him to Pearl for life. When Pearl came to Knoxville, Pancratz followed as a graduate assistant and never left town, even choosing to stay on with the Tennessee program for Cuonzo Martin after Pearl was fired. Pancratz eventually left the coaching business and stayed in town with his wife (who’s from the area) and daughter, and he ultimately chose to remain in Knoxville rather than go with Pearl to Auburn.

On what reaction Pearl will receive: “I think it’ll be a very close call. I actually think some people will boo Bruce, and I think some will try to drown that out with cheers of, ‘Bruuuuuuce.’ I think it’ll be close between Bruce and (current Vols coach Donnie Tyndall) for who gets more of an ovation. I hope not, though. I hope Donnie gets a louder round of applause.”

Former Vols hoops assistant Mark Pancratz and his family (Photo: UT sports info)

On what reaction Pearl should receive: “I think Bruce does deserve a nice round of applause. I think for what he did here —Â six years of going to NCAA Tournaments, Sweet Sixteens, an Elite Eight, what he did in the community with the Outlive campaign and Camp Koinonia —Â he did a lot for this community. So I think he deserves a round of applause. My hope is, though, that the tradition and the pride of the Tennessee fans stands up even louder for Donnie Tyndall, because he’s the guy now. He’s the coach right now. And it’s not just about Donnie. It’s about Josh Richardson and Armani Moore and those guys who have given so much to this community and done nothing but represent Tennessee in a great way. I hope the fans give Tennessee a much louder ovation. At the end of the day, Tennessee fans should want Tennessee to win.”

On whether Saturday will be weird: “It’s gonna be an emotional day for me, no lie. I was Coach Pearl’s first recruit to Tennessee (as a student assistant coach), and he gave me a great opportunity to work for him and the university, and I love this place so much that I stayed here and I’m proud to call this place home. Without Bruce, I wouldn’t have been here, and I wouldn’t have met my wife. But there’s the other side, and that other side is the what-ifs. If some decisions were made differently by Coach Pearl, we’d still be on the sidelines today coaching Tennessee. The what-ifs of where we were gonna be nationally drive you crazy, because if things hadn’t turned out the way they did for Coach Pearl at Tennessee, we would be a national program, a national power. So there will be a lot of emotion for me personally, because ultimately my career path was altered by the decisions that were made, and by some things that were out of my control. It’s a lot of questions, a lot of wondering. It’s weird to hear, ‘Bruce Pearl, head coach of Auburn.’ It’s just weird. It just doesn’t sound right.”

On whether people from the Pearl era at Tennessee are talking about Saturday’s game: “Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. We’ve talked about it for a while. We’ve talked about how Bruce, for everything that happened, really cared about this place, and still does. I mean, the guy stayed here when he got fired. He still has a house here. His wife’s from here. He still has a daughter who lives here. I’m intrigued to see how he handles it. I think lots of us are. We all believe there’s a big piece of his heart still in Knoxville.”

Lasting Pearl memory: “My wife used to babysit Bruce’s children when he first moved to Knoxville, and she was still a college student. Bruce and his wife would go out to events and all that stuff, and my wife would occasionally go to sleep with Bruce’s kids in Bruce’s bed, and then she’d eventually wake up and head to the couch until Bruce and his wife got back. Sometimes they’d get home pretty late and she was too tired to drive home, so she’d just stay there and get up and go to class the next morning. Well, one time she stayed there on a Thursday night, so the next day was Friday, and we had Ramar Smith coming in for his visit. So Ramar comes in, and we’re showing him around campus, and we’re walking around some classes and stuff like that, and we walk by one of my now-wife’s communication classes. We think we’re just gonna maybe peek in there and be all quiet and polite, but suddenly Bruce decided to just bust into the class. I mean, this is a big classroom — a big lecture hall, really. And he busts in and yells, ‘Brooke! Brooke Waddell!’ Then he grabs a pink Motorola Razr phone out of his pocket, and he yells, ‘Brooke! The Missus is starting to ask a lot of questions! You can’t keep leaving your phone in my bed! You’re killin’ me here!’ And I’m proud to say my wife is a cute-looking blonde, so Ramar stared elbowing Bruce like, ‘Yeah, coach! Yeah!’ My wife, of course, is totally embarrassed. She’s all puffed up. But that’s just typical Bruce. He has no regard for things like that. He’ll embarrass anybody, and he’ll do anything to get a laugh out of somebody that he wants to get a laugh out of. …And of course he never explained that he was kidding, so who knows what everybody in there thought. He never said anything like, ‘I’m just kidding, guys. She was just babysitting my kids. It’s no big deal.’ I mean, maybe he wanted everybody to think it was something else. I’m sure he wanted Ramar to think that. And, I mean, we signed Ramar.”

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CHRIS LOFTON

Pearl connection: After signing to play for Buzz Peterson and playing for Peterson as a freshman, Lofton —Â a high school legend in Kentucky —Â became a Vols legend in the Pearl years. He was an All-American and arguably the best 3-point shooter in college basketball history, and he memorably played through his senior season while undergoing treatment for testicular cancer but kept the news private, even away from some teammates. Lofton is currently playing professional basketball in Europe.

On what reaction Pearl will receive: “Tennessee will always love him. I know the fan base still loves him after what he did for us in the men’s basketball program. He turned us around, and he did it real quick.”

Former Tennessee All-American Chris Lofton (Photo: Knoxville News Sentinel)

On whether Saturday will be weird: “Yes. Definitely. It just don’t feel right, man.”

Lasting Pearl memory: “For me, it’s just him bringing that mentality and passion every day to games and practice. He turned us into winners.”

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TYLER SMITH

Pearl connection: A high school phenom from Pulaski, Tenn., Smith spent one prep-school season at Virginia’s Hargrave Military Academy and then stunned many Vols fans by signing with Iowa. In a memorable story, though, his father was dying from cancer, so Smith returned home to Tennessee and starred for the Vols for two-plus seasons, being a unanimous All-SEC player and a beloved figure around the area. The story ended on a sour note, with Smith and some teammates running into some off-the-field trouble and being dismissed from the program, but good luck finding anyone who played with Smith at Tennessee who won’t vouch for him to this day. Smith is currently playing professional basketball in Europe.

On what reaction Pearl will receive: “I think coming back as a visitor is like coming back to coach at home. He is loved up on The Hill. I think it’ll be a warm welcome. He brought the men's basketball program back to life, man. I would like to think they'll give him a standing ovation, because what he accomplished at UT is second to none on the men's side. I’m sure he’s excited to be back in TBA because there were so many great memories he made there as our coach. He’s a special coach, and wherever he is he will do great.”

On what reaction Pearl should receive: “Nothing but love.”

On whether Saturday will be weird: “No. It won’t be weird, because as you just said, it’s business. Things happen, and that's how it goes sometimes. He was our coach, and whether it's UT or Auburn still root and want Coach Pearl to do well. But not for this game. Come on, man. I’m a VFL.”

Lasting Pearl memory: “The speech he gave us before the Memphis game (the No. 1 versus No. 2 game in Memphis on Feb. 23, 2008) game was great. It was just a great speech. I think his words alone gave us an edge. He’s a great motivator and knows how to get the best of his players.”

The dunk: Smith didn’t mention the most stunning moment of his career — this slam dunk over 7-foot Arkansas center Steven Hill during an SEC Tournament game played in front of a mostly empty arena after a tornado forced the game to be played at Georgia Tech — but there’s never a bad time to link this.

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JORDAN HOWELL

Pearl connection: Signed to play for Buzz Peterson at Tennessee and played one season for Peterson before Pearl arrived and transformed the program. Played 111 games for the Vols as a point guard and shooting guard, making 87 3-pointers along the way. Also, interestingly enough, is a native of Auburn, Ala., and his father and brother played basketball at Auburn.

On what reaction Pearl will receive: “I expect Bruce to be Bruce and get his ovation, which I think is deserved. He put Tennessee back on the map, so I think it absolutely will be deserved. Let’s not kid ourselves. What happened at the end, that happened. But he made Tennessee basketball relevant.”

On what reaction Pearl should receive: “I hope people give him a nice ovation, but that Donnie and his team gets a much louder ovation, …and then we win the game. I’m speaking for myself here, but personally I love Donnie Tyndall. I think he’s the man. I think he’s a great basketball coach. I hope we hold onto him.”

On whether the way the Pearl ended era will always be an asterisk of sorts to his time at Tennessee: “I think that’s fair. My dream was to play big-time college basketball, and I got to live that out. When you go through the process, it’s highs and lows, and I experienced both of those personally. Everybody on our team experienced both of those. I think the lows made me stronger, so I’m grateful about that as I look back. I thank Coach Pearl for a lot of that. We had some extremely great times, and some times where they were really not great, and you wanted to kill him. Everybody who’s played played for him is like that. That’s how it was. I didn’t always agree with him, and I always respected him. Everybody did, I think, and we got so much better as a result. …The program was headed to a special level, and obviously it sucks that we didn’t get there, and that some of that [off-court] stuff was the reason.”

On whether Saturday will be weird: “Here’s what’s crazy, man. I didn’t hear much from Bruce for a couple of years after I graduated, and then the last year of his show-cause, I bumped into him on the Charlotte airport. We were both on business, and it was just kind of random. And he told me then —Â and this is before he knew what he was gonna do —Â that if he came back to coaching, that it was gonna be in the SEC. Three months later, I’m at the SEC Tournament in Atlanta, and I’m hanging out with Steven Pearl, and Bruce calls Steven. So Steven tells Bruce I’m there, and Bruce says, ‘Put him on the phone.’ And then Bruce started asking me all about Auburn, all the ins and outs of Auburn, ‘cause he’d just met with them the night before. That was a strange experience, but he knew that I knew a lot about Auburn. The point is that I knew if he came back to coaching, it was gonna be in the SEC, and I know it’s because he knows he can win in the SEC. I know he thinks it’s the two big dogs —Â Kentucky and Florida — and then just everybody else. I tend to disagree with that, though. I think Donnie Tyndall is the man, and I think if we can hang onto him, he can put us right back up there. But I think that was Bruce’s attitude. I know it was, actually. But we’ll see how it turns out. Auburn’s a tough job. It’s not Tennessee. Auburn’s a small place, and most of the fans live either 45 minutes away in Montgomery or two hours away in Birmingham, and they can’t get down for weeknight basketball games. I went down there for a game this year, and I remember everybody was so excited about this being their first sellout in forever, and I just remember just kind of waiting on (the crowd) to get fired up. I mean, it’s a great arena, but it’s never filled out. But that night, everybody walking out of the arena was like, ‘That crowd was amazing.’ And I was just laughing and saying, ‘Y’all have no idea what a great crowd is.’ I just don’t think the community down there is big enough to support that basketball program like it could, in my opinion.”

Lasting Pearl memory: “Definitely the pregame speech before the Memphis game when they were No. 1 and we were No. 2. I’ll never forget him saying, ‘I don't know if we're the best team in the country, but after tonight we're gonna to be the No. 1 team in the country.’ And we were. The way we ended that season [to Louisville in the Sweet Sixteen] is still the toughest memory, and you always wonder what would have happened if Chris had been 100 percent healthy and we hadn’t peaked a little too soon and we hadn’t been given that ridiculous draw in the tournament. We should have been a No. 1 seed, and we were a No. 2 in the hardest bracket. But we were still 31-5, and I’m not sure there’s ever been a better team at Tennessee. We did a lot of things people thought we’d never do.”

On the first time he realized the Pearl era would be different: “Believe it or not, it was the first game. Bruce’s first game as our coach was an exhibition game against Southern Indiana, a Division 2 team, and we went to overtime with them. I can’t help but admit it, but even during that game you started thinking, ‘Ugh, are we gonna be bad again this year?’ But we survived that game, and I’ll never forget this: Going into overtime of that game, Bruce looked right at us and said, ‘I win these games.’ And he was right. We did win those kinds of game. He was confident, and he made us confident. We didn’t have that before. Then we went to Texas when they were ranked No. 5 or No. 6 in the country, and they had Daniel Gibson and LaMarcus Aldridge and P.J. Buckner and all those guys, and we just crushed ‘em. We knew that day that Tennessee basketball was something to deal with. We knew at that moment. We went from wanting to hide our faces on campus to trying to be everywhere. We were embarrassing for a little while. Even Chris was on the verge of looking elsewhere after our first season. We weren’t very good at all, and all these top schools were letting it be known that they wanted him. We were all embarrassed all the time, but we were proud when we left. It was the things you dream about when you grow up dreaming about playing college basketball. I’m 30 now, and I’ll still remember that stuff when I’m a lot older than this. I’ll never forget it.”

On the first couple of seasons of the Pearl era in Knoxville: “I absolutely believe in Bruce, and how he gets buy-in from people. But I also had the good fortune of living with Chris Lofton in college and being able to call him one of my best friends, and I think he was also one of the main reasons for the turnaround at Tennessee. Not to take anything away from Bruce, but without Chris Lofton, none of that happens. We couldn’t have done it without Bruce, but we definitely couldn’t have done any of it without Chris. We had some great basketball players.”

On getting it on: Howell didn’t mention this, but he provided one of the most hilarious moments of the Pearl Era when Tennessee did a Total Pearl Thing —Â playing a video of Howell on the piano and singing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”

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SKYLAR McBEE

Pearl connection: Knoxville-area native who turned down NCAA Division I scholarship offers to walk-on for Pearl at Tennessee and became a bit of a folk hero, appearing in 131 career games and making 161 3-pointers —Â including Knoxvillle’s version of the shot heard ‘round the world.

On what reaction Pearl will receive: “If you lived in this area at the time [during Pearl’s first couple of seasons], you know how the people around here responded to Coach Pearl. I’m interested to see the kind of reaction he’s gonna have for the crowd, and on the game itself. I think this could turn into one of those games where the game itself isn’t the biggest story, and you just wonder how that’s gonna affect everybody, especially Tennessee. I think that he will get a very warm reception. I think it’ll be so warm that it’ll become a question of, ‘Should an opposing coach get this much love in an opposing arena?’ I think he’s gonna get a lot of love. I think if you just pulled a random person into the arena and didn’t tell them what was going on, they’d think it was pretty weird.”

On what reaction Pearl should receive: “I think the reception needs to be warm, and it needs to be good. Let’s acknowledge the fact that during Coach Pearl’s time at Tennessee, those were the best basketball seasons we’ve seen in modern Tennessee basketball history. You had the Ernie and Bernie days, and then you had our days, and they were probably comparable. I mean, we were No. 1 in the nation, and we’d never done that before. We reached the Elite Eight, and we’d never done that before. And all this happened when the football program was kind of down and out. I’m from this area. This is my home. I know how important all that stuff is to us here. It’s an emotional thing, really. I don’t know if it’s my place to say what should or shouldn’t happen. I don’t think that should be my call. That’s a personal decision everybody’s got to make. But I think people have to be respectful to Coach Tyndall, too. He’s a great coach, and he’s our coach. But I think some gratitude for Coach Pearl is OK, too.”

On comparing the success of the Pearl era to the downfall of the Pearl era: “I really think that, you know, that you have to look at in perspective. Obviously it’s a situation that nobody wished would happen. It’s a situation that if you asked him —Â and I know you have —Â that he would tell you he regretted. He made some mistakes. But that’s part of life. For me, and I think for most people, it was just so sad. We had grown so attached to Coach Pearl, and seeing the energy he brought to the program, and seeing the kind of success we had here, and the success that we were gonna keep having here, that made it tough. It did. We were turning into a basketball school. We were someone you didn’t want to mess with. We were beating the best teams in college basketball. You can’t skip over that. You can’t forget that we were so successful with him before all that bad stuff happened. But then you have to take a step back and look at the reality of the situation, and the reality is that all that’s in the past. That time is over with. He took some lumps, we took some lumps as a program, and now we all need to move on. I mean, we’ve had two coaches since him. We can’t keep talking about getting Bruce back. We need to talk about supporting who we have. We’ve had some great guys here, and we need to let them establish their own legacies at the University of Tennessee.”

On whether Saturday will be weird: “I mean, it’s an interesting situation. It really is. It’s interesting. I think if you make it about that, then it’s a little too much. I look at it like this: What you want as a school is to be successful, and a good league makes you more successful, and it creates more rivalries and attention and all that stuff. You’re creating emotion. You’re creating a situation for games that make it more enjoyable as a fan, and more enjoyable as a player. I think it’s a positive thing. That’s the way I’ve always looked at this. Maybe Tennessee and Auburn can become a great rivalry now, you know? Let’s try to have some fun with this. That’s how I’m looking at it.”

Lasting Pearl memory: “You know, just being honest with you, I never would have expected growing up around here that we [Tennessee basketball players] would end up being such a big deal, you know? I think that’s something I understood a lot more than the rest of the guys I played with, if that make sense, ‘cause they weren’t from around here like I was. I know how huge Tennessee football is. I remember being a kid here, and you couldn’t get a ticket, and it was just so electric there. I didn’t get to experience that while I was in college, and I wished I would have. I mean, we were the big deal on campus, but you know I’ve always loved Tennessee football. I still do. I wish we’d have won a national championship when I was on campus. Being the big man on campus is kind of cool, obviously, but I’m a Tennessee fan. Even this past year, me and my brother loaded up the truck and drove 14 hours to Oklahoma, watched the game on Saturday and then drove back on Sunday. I’m a Tennessee fan No. 1, and it just so happens that it’s also my alma mater, which is awesome. As cool as it was that we were a basketball school when I was there and still are a big basketball place, it’s just so different. And Coach Pearl got that going. I don’t think a lot of the guys I played with ever understood that, but I don’t know how they could have understood it. This is the only Tennessee those guys have known.”

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