‘We would’ve been shouting and hollering until the cows came home’ — Former Tennessee coach Tony Jones calls out Bruce Pearl over recent comments

Jones had a very fair reminder to Pearl about where they came from.

Craig Smith — College Football & NFL Trending News Writer
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Cathy Clarke/News Sentinel Archives, Knoxville News Sentinel

Former Tennessee Vols and Auburn Tigers head coach Bruce Pearl has been getting a lot of public attention the last few weeks as the 2025-26 college basketball regular season comes to a close.

Pearl, who coached at Tennessee from 2005-11, stepped down as the Auburn Tigers’ head coach last year after taking them to two Final Fours during his tenure. His son, Steven succeeded him as Auburn’s next coach, something that Pearl admits he helped facilitate.

Naturally, the Tigers, at 16-14, find themselves squarely on the bubble — which, frankly, is a present when you’ve lost almost half of your games. However, Pearl made waves this week when he talked about Miami (OH), who come into their regular season finale against Ohio on Friday night a perfect 30-0.

Pearl recently during a TNT studio segment that said the RedHawks shouldn’t be in the NCAA Tournament unless they win the MAC Tournament.

“Miami (Ohio), here’s the deal — are we going to select the 68 most deserving teams. Or are we going to select the 68 best teams? If we’re selecting the 68 best teams, then Miami (Ohio) is going to have to win their tournament to qualify as a champion. Because as an at-large, they are not one of the best teams in the country. And that’s going to be a difficult choice for the committee to make.”

Well, Pearl’s former assistant coach at Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Tennessee, and Auburn, Tony Jones, offered Pearl a sobering reminder of where they came from before coming to Knoxville and the irony of his words. Jones joined Tony Basilio on his show on Thursday, and he reminded Pearl of how they’d feel if they were in a similar situation at Milwaukee.

Former Tennessee assistant coach Tony Jones says he and Bruce Pearl would have been yelling to be in if they were 30-0 at Milwaukee

“Obviously I go way back with Bruce Pearl, and him making the statement about Miami of Ohio, I don’t agree with that,” Jones told Basilio (around the hour and 52-minute mark of the video). “Saying Miami of Ohio, if they don’t win their conference tournament, they shouldn’t get into the NCAA (Tournament), I revert back to when we were at Milwaukee, and we got the job from Milwaukee. If we had gone 30-0 and someone would’ve said, ‘hey, they don’t deserve to get in unless they win the Horizon League,’ we would’ve been shouting and hollering until the cows came home that we were deserving.

“So, I don’t agree with Bruce on that occurrence. Maybe he thinks Miami may be a competitor of Auburn for getting into the tournament, but it’s going to be a struggle. They’ve (Auburn) still got work to do, Tony.”

Jones makes a fair point in that, at that point of their lives and careers, they’d be stomping mad if they got shut down by the selection committee after losing their first game of the season in their conference tournament. And if you say that out loud, it does sound ridiculous. And that’s because it is.

Pearl clearly has a bias regarding Auburn with his son in charge of the program, and Auburn and Miami (OH) could be in the conversation together if the latter loses in the MAC Tournament.

But it’s a conversation that should be a short one and in favor of the RedHawks. Which is something that Pearl circa 2004 would very likely strongly agree with.

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