Bruce Pearl and Travis Steele Credit: TNT Sports
By Sam Neumann on

Two weeks ago, Bruce Pearl was on TV telling the country that Miami (Ohio) RedHawks men’s basketball didn’t belong in the NCAA Tournament, at least not without an auto-bid. Now he’s sitting across from Travis Steele on TNT Sports, and the argument hasn’t changed. The RedHawks are 31-0, the Mid-American Conference tournament hasn’t even started, and Pearl still technically believes they need to win it to earn a bid.

But that’s almost beside the point now.

There’s a fine to pay, a Cinderella to acknowledge, and a Hall of Fame coach who spent the better part of a fortnight as the villain of the sport’s best story.

“I kind of feel like you’re Cinderella,” Pearl told Steele, “and I’m the ugly stepmother.”

Pearl isn’t just playing the role of the ugly stepmother, though. He’s also playing the role of Steven Pearl’s father.

So when he tells Travis Steele that this isn’t personal — that it’s just business for him — he sounds less like an analyst for TNT Sports and more like the politician he was once rumored to be. In another life, Pearl was running for the U.S. Senate, but in this one, he’s the head coach of Auburn’s dad.

That’s why the whole Godfather routine rings a little hollow.

“This is the business we’ve chosen,” he told Steele. “It’s not personal.”

But Pearl is the one who chose this particular argument. He’s been the loudest voice in sports media suggesting Miami (Ohio) would be a bottom-feeder in a power conference. He’s the one who’s spent the last couple of weeks questioning whether Miami deserves an at-large bid if they don’t win the MAC Tournament, saying that the Redbirds would “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.”

“Looks to me like they have to win one more to get in. That’s objectively how I feel. Am I rooting for my son to make the NCAA Tournament? Of course I am. Did I help my son get the job? Nepotism? Of course, I did,” Pearl said, just a few days after insisting there was no nepotism involved in his favoring Auburn’s NCAA Tournament chances over the Redhawks in an appearance with Wake Up Barstool on FS1.

“You know I’ve been rooting for you,” Pearl told Steele.

Pearl can’t have it both ways. The stepmother doesn’t get to interview Cinderella on national television and tell her it’s nothing personal. She doesn’t get to explain that keeping Cinderella locked in the basement was just business, that someone had to look out for her own daughters’ interests, and that she’s actually been rooting for Cinderella the whole time.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann