I'm probably late on this, but yesterday was a wicked day that prevented me from hearing anything on my time-shifting iPod until this morning. The thing that struck me most was a comment from Mike Griffith relaying that he'd heard Bruce Pearl say something to the effect that if winning the SEC East isn't good enough for Vol fans, then maybe he was in the wrong place.

Yikes. This leads to a lot of questions. Is this regular season a disappointment? Does it matter, or is the NCAA Tournament really the only/primary thing that counts? Are we stuck in football mode, where one or two losses eats into the success of a season to a much greater degree than one or two losses does during regular season basketball? Are we any different than any other fan base? Are we just talking about life cycles here, meaning has Pearl stayed at any institution long enough to have to live up to the expectations his success has created for himself rather than just reviving a program and then moving on? Does he realize that, and that's why he made the statement, because he's managing our expectations? Where in the world would Tennessee be if we lost Bruce Pearl?

What do y'all think?