Just another ho-hum news day on Rocky Top, huh?
It took all day, but Bruce Pearl blew off the Suitor in Blue, saying that he's 100% committed to Tennessee, that he loves his job, and that there's no place he'd rather be. Good thing, too, because Memphis was reportedly willing to pay Pearl up to $3.25 million per year. Details of Pearl's new contract won't be released for a few days, but Mike Griffith thinks that he'll likely get a raise of between $250,000 to $500,000, which would put him between $2 million and $2.2 million, third-best in the SEC behind Calipari ($3.7M) and Billy Donovan ($3.5M).
I agree with John Adams that this is the best news for Volunteer basketball since the Pearlfection game. Adams also points out that Pearl can now go right into Memphis and ask players to choose Tennessee over Tiger High -- just like he did. And no, I'm not going to ban the use of derogatory terms like "Tiger High" likely because I lack self-esteem. One word, five times for such Tiger fans:
So yeah, crisis averted. Note to self: Remember this day the next time we lose a game.