Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton says he does not know if Bruce Pearl will be the Volunteers coach after the NCAA tournament.
In an interview with WNML-AM in Knoxville that aired yesterday, Hamilton said that he, chancellor Jimmy Cheek and school trustees will evaluate Pearl after the season ends. The ninth-seeded Vols play eighth-seeded Michigan on Friday in the tournament.
"We don't know the answer today," Hamilton said when asked whether Pearl would be the coach next season. "We've done a lot of soul searching about the direction of our program, and we'll continue to do that, and we'll decide after we're out of the NCAA Tournament what direction it is that we're going to go next.
"The jury is out with what's going to happen on that. He knows that, by the way."
Pearl has been working without a contract since revealing in September that he misled NCAA investigators during a probe into recruiting. The NCAA charged him with unethical conduct and other violations, though the NCAA has not released a final ruling on the matter.
"He knows that this is a tough situation that we're in," Hamilton said, "and that we're going to weigh all the things he's done so positively for our community and for our basketball program, and that will be considered greatly as we do the evaluation process."
Tennessee reduced Pearl's salary by $1.5 million over four seasons as punishment for lying to the NCAA and banned him from off-campus recruiting for a year. The Southeastern Conference also weighed in, suspending him for eight conference games.
