Bruce Pearl's Return Puts Swagger Back in Tennessee's Step

Tuesday night, Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl will return to his team's bench, a place he's been absent from eight of the Vols' last nine games. He'll likely be donning a loud orange blazer as he always days when UT plays Vanderbilt and Kentucky, and there's no reason to believe that his demeanor will deviate from what we are accustomed to.

Weeks after SEC commissioner Mike Slive leveled Pearl with an eight-game conference suspension in November, the coach sat down with CBS's Seth Davis and managed to shed a few tears to prove just how sorry he was for his misdeeds. The apology was contrite, sure, though he certainly seemed more sorry he got caught than anything else. But he served his suspension in relative peace and obscurity, and the matter -- as far as the SEC is concerned -- is done.

However, Pearl still has critics. Nothing new, to be sure, as Bruce Pearl has always had his critics.

He's a very loud man, both in appearance and voice, and he is more than willing to draw attention to himself. Given his current predicament, his critics have been louder and more widespread than before.

ESPN's Dick Vitale has been outspoken in saying that he believes that if any other coach at any other institution would have lied as egregiously as Pearl did to the NCAA, that the institution would have fired the coach. Tuesday morning, CBS Sports' Gary Parrish told Kentucky Sports Radio that he expects the NCAA to suspend Pearl for the entirety of next season. (The NCAA is still reviewing the matter.) There are others, of course, and Pearl certainly has his defenders, as well.

But none of that matters, really. What's done is done, and now Pearl is saddled with a team in a very peculiar position. They have quality wins and bad losses alike, but they have survived in conference play, with assistant coach Tony Jones leading them to a 5-3 record in Pearl's absence. And, really, his return couldn't come at a better time.

The Vols will roll into Rupp Arena winners in three of their last four, while Kentucky is sitting on a two-game losing streak. In order for UT to get a win in Lexington -- something no team has done in the John Calipari era -- they'll need their swagger. Bruce Pearl is an embodiment of that swagger.

"It's great to have our leader back, our general,'' guard Cameron Tatum told the Knoxville News Sentinel. "It will be good to have everything back to normal.''

Even so, the Vols will face a tough task. Rupp Arena has been unforgiving to Pearl, and the coach has only won one time in Lexington. Beyond that, the Vols have lost 10 of their last 11 games there.

Still, if they expect to have a chance tonight, they'll need their leader there. And he will be there, just as he always is. Critics be damned.