Bruce Pearl Turnaround
After the Buzz Peterson era was less successful than expected, Tennessee hired Bruce Pearl from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 2005. Pearl's assistants Tony Jones, Steve Forbes, Jacob Nichols, Jason Shay, and Ken Johnson rounded out a staff that helped bring the Vols to the NCAA tournament six years in a row.
During the 2006-07 season, the Volunteers were ranked 4th nationally in attendance with an average of 19,661 fans in Thompson-Boling Arena, which has a capacity of 21,758. Since coach Bruce Pearl arrived in March 2005 the attendance increased by an average of 7,436 per game.
In the 2008 season Pearl led the Vols to their first regular season SEC championship in 41 years as well as the first number 1 ranking for the program.
On March 26, 2010, the Vols made the Elite Eight for the first time ever by defeating Ohio State 76-73. The Vols were then defeated by Michigan State by one point, 70-69, on a Spartan foul shot with 1.8 seconds left in the game to fall short of their first Final Four.
On March 21, 2011, Pearl was fired by the school, based on Pearl's misconduct of lying to an NCAA investigation about recruiting violations.
Read more about this topic: Tennessee Volunteers Basketball
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