O'Donnell: Pearl is drawing attention to the seamier side of NCAA basketball

APPARENTLY THE CBS / TURNER COMBINE TELEVISING the 2026 NCAA men's basketball tournament believes career hustlers can be run through a morality car wash.

But a whole lot of the viewing public isn't necessarily buying that soak-and-shammy management stance when it comes to studio analyst Bruce Pearl.

One year ago Pearl's Auburn was the No. 1 overall seed. His Tigers made it to the Final Four before getting trap-doored 79-73 by eventual national champion Florida.

Pearl retired. His son Steve succeeded him. Auburn dipped from 32-6 to 18-16 and failed to make the 68-team field last weekend.

OK, fine — reloads happen.

BUT IT'S BRUCE PEARL'S DEEPER HISTORY with the NCAA that makes him a most curious choice to be a prime face of an annual event that still tries to sell its core wholesomeness.

In 2011, he was abruptly fired amid a successful run at Tennessee because of assorted improprieties. The NCAA deemed the Pearl transgressions so serious that he was given a three-year “show cause” sanction, essentially banning him from the major-college game for that period.

(The only equally buoyant slickster to overcome a show-cause in the new millennium is Houston's Kelvin Sampson. He got five years while being booted at Indiana in 2008. Sampson survived professionally thanks to the kindnesses of some pals in the NBA. He resurfaced in 2014 commanding Tilman Fertitta's well-resourced Cougars, where he remains — with son Kellen in waiting.)

PEARL'S DARK SIDE, as more seasoned University of Illinois fans know, goes back even further.

During the 1988-89 season, while an assistant to Tom Davis at Iowa, Pearl secretly recorded a telephone conversation with Deon Thomas, then one of the nation's top prep prospects out of Chicago's fabled Simeon High School.

(Thomas followed greats Ben Wilson and Nick Anderson at Simeon and preceded Derrick Rose.)

PEARL CLAIMED HE GOT THOMAS to admit that Illini assistant Jimmy Collins — no angel — offered Thomas cash and an SUV to attend Illinois.

Thomas denied the charges, adding that he had no awareness the conversation was being recorded and was merely saying anything Pearl wanted to hear to get the pushy manipulator off the line.

Collins also said the offers were fictitious and later branded Pearl “a snake.”

STILL, PEARL FORWARDED THE PHONE TAPE to the NCAA. Thomas passed a polygraph affirming his denials.

(Thomas went on to star for Lou Henson's Illini and in more recent years has maintained a role on the university staff. His work as a radio analyst has been notably sharp and informed.)

Pearl avoided prosecution for the phone taping. But the Illinois men's program, due to other baseline violations discovered during the ensuing NCAA sleuthing, was hit with a number of sanctions, including a one-year post-season ban.

SO DESPITE HIS SLITHERY PAST, Pearl popped up last Sunday alongside Clark Kellogg, Seth Davis and Adam Zucker on the Selection Sunday reveal show.

Anyone familiar with the totality of Pearl's past wasn't comfortable watching.

But the shot callers at CBS / Turner could care less.

Pearl is fresh TV, and all of his career tar has apparently been shammied off after a soak through some mythical morality car wash.

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A YOUNG PAUL NEWMAN greatly assisted his rise to film stardom by playing hardscrabble boxer Rocky Graziano in a 1956 b&w biopic titled “Somebody Up There Likes Me.”

Jason Benetti may want to recycle that phrase to describe his new wave of career ascendancy.

Wednesday, the 42-year-old broadcaster was in Buffalo prepping to work four Round 1 games of the NCAA men's tourney for radio force Westwood One.

THEN WORD CAME DOWN that Brian Anderson — TNT's scheduled play-by-player — was suffering from significant voice problems.

The Anderson hoarseness was readily evident on truTV Tuesday night when he labored through the Texas-North Carolina State First Four game from Dayton alongside Dick Vitale and Charles Barkley.

So Benetti was asked to sub. He quickly obtained permission from both Westwood One and NBC Sports, where he was tabbed as new lead voice of “Sunday Night Baseball” only two weeks ago.

WORKING WITH THE FASHIONABLE JIM JACKSON — Toledo's answer to one-time Bulls matinee idol Reggie Theus — Benetti was sensational.

His virtuoso performance was greatly enhanced by Jackson, who “got it” and could keep pace with almost all of Benetti's four-seam pop-cultural bon mots.

BENETTI'S CAREER ARC HAS GOTTEN new lift since ditching the White Sox broadcast catacomb two winters ago in favor of the Detroit Tigers and major national work.

Maybe “Somebody Up There Likes Me” doesn't take it quite far enough.

Perhaps Benetti can opt for “Free Bird.”

· Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.