Here’s how you can tell Bruce Pearl spent 17 seasons coaching in the SEC: He’s a huge hypothetical victories guy.
Yes, this is typically associated with SEC football — “Indiana would finish 10th in the SEC,” and “Alabama would kill all these teams,” and “Um, Alabama wouldn’t have been blown out by Indiana if not for the way the sun bounces off those mountains,” and so on — but Pearl has brought it to basketball with his Miami (Ohio) commentary.
“They’re not built for the grind of a Big Ten or even a Big East. In the Big East conference this year, they’d finish in the lower half,” Pearl said Monday on FS1’s “Wake Up Barstool” of the unbeaten RedHawks, which followed up his weekend TNT coverage declaring Miami is not of at-large bid quality, which has most of the college hoops world screaming at him. “They may not finish last, but I’ll tell you what, I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure.”
This is disrespect for the best story in men’s college basketball this season, and Pearl deserves some of the venom he has been receiving. But as is often the case with things like this that start with a video clip and catch fire, the screaming quickly drowned out some of the finer points of the discussion.
Such as this claim from Pearl when I reached him on Wednesday: He thinks Miami deserves to be in the tournament, even if it loses a game.
Wait, what?
“I’ve said it on three or four occasions at this point, but no one has noticed,” Pearl said. “I’ve said that I’m glad the human element is involved, that I would put a one-loss Miami of Ohio team in the field. Absolutely. Because they’re deserving. I’ve also said, if you’re asking me if I think Miami is one of the 37 best teams that would be in the mix for an at-large bid, no I do not. I’m not walking anything back. Both things can be true.”
They can be. And they are. If Miami wins Friday in a “Battle of the Bricks” rivalry installment at Ohio to finish the regular season 31-0, that should be a wrap. A loss in the MAC tournament should not keep the RedHawks out of the field. It should make the MAC a two-bid league.
Whether it actually turns out that way, we may (and Miami hopes we don’t have to) find out. But the Wins Above Bubble metric, which was introduced last season and ranks the teams based on performance relative to the average bubble team, is a friend to Miami and to mid-majors in general. Most other metrics scream what Pearl said to invite screams — this is not a team that matches up with the quality of other at-large contenders.
It’s 86th in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency rankings, 125th defensively, with the 285th-strongest schedule, for example. It’s 90th in ESPN’s BPI rankings. It has not played and will not play a Quad 1 game. But it is 26th in the WAB rankings at plus 3.15, which essentially means 3.15 more wins than the average bubble team would have against its schedule.
This is what can happen with incremental gains over 30 games and zero setbacks to take a chunk out of your score. This score should be able to sustain one loss and keep Miami viable in a metric the committee has made clear is critical in sorting through at-large candidates.
This is a terrific development for programs like Miami that try and fail to schedule Power 5 opponents because too many Power 5 coaches are cowardly and see only the downside in such matchups. The WAB rewards excellence.
And Travis Steele’s team has achieved it, through the loss of a starting point guard, through the attention and pressure that have built steadily along the way. You can be unimpressed if you want with six one-possession MAC wins, including two-point escapes in the past two games.
I’m seeing a special, fearless, clutch group that has earned the right to play on the sport’s biggest stage — and could do damage, considering an array of shooters and an effective field goal percentage of 59.2, good for sixth nationally.
Apparently, Pearl agrees? A lot of the anger around his commentary has to do with a certain bubble team that is 16-14, with some fantastic wins including at Florida, but an overall track record that screams mediocrity. Pearl retired abruptly in the fall from Auburn, son Steven took over in a hasty transfer of power, and now the coach-turned-analyst is knocking a would-be competitor for the Tigers’ spot in the field.
Would Miami have a better record than Auburn does against a schedule ranked No. 3 in the country? Would Auburn be a significant favorite over Miami if they met on a neutral site? Who cares? We’ve got enough data in this sport to shun all hypotheticals.
Pearl, for the record, said he brought up Auburn on the air because he knew people would think he was trying to campaign and he wanted to clear the air.
“I’m not going to answer the question of who should be in, Auburn or Miami, so don’t ask me the question,” Pearl said. “I’m not going there. But I’m not trying to get Auburn in. They’re going to play their way in or lose their way out. I wasn’t trying to diss Miami to get Auburn in.”
If we’re being real, of course Pearl would choose Auburn over Miami if it came down to two teams for one spot and he had that power, because we all have biases and he has years of his life invested in Auburn and a son coaching there. That’s as “no duh” as another Pearl comment on an Outkick.com show that is getting a lot of attention, his acknowledgement of “nepotism” in Steven getting the job. How is that a revelation? It’s nepotism by definition.
If we’re staying real, none of what Pearl has said publicly is going to matter to the committee. And some of the reaction has gone overboard. I get Miami AD David Sayler being upset, but tweeting that Pearl “should not be near a TV studio covering this sport” is a bit much.
Pearl has been very good in his analyst role, which is no surprise. If his full point on Miami got lost, he should still understand that he sounds like a guy campaigning against the RedHawks in the clips that are circulating. He’s got to take an “L” on that.
And we can all agree one “L” shouldn’t ruin a season.