This was in yesterdays Myrtle Beach newsapaper.I still can't stop laughing.
Topic for debate: Who has done the better coaching job this season, Bruce Pearl at Tennessee or Buzz Peterson at Coastal Carolina?
People outside the Grand Strand would probably say Pearl, mainly because they know what he has done by turning around Tennessee but have no clue what Peterson has done at CCU.
But if they knew about the Chants' 12-game winning streak, about the program's decade-plus streak of losing seasons and about the players and resources he has to work with, Peterson may be a leading candidate for coach of the year, especially if his team reaches the NCAA tournament with a win over Winthrop today.
Pearl has done a great job in his first year with the Vols, who fired Peterson last year after a losing season. But if you had a pickup game with the starting fives from Tennessee and Coastal, you probably wouldn't pick a single Chant on your team.
Peterson is winning with a 5-foot-9 walk-on point guard, a 6-4 freshman forward as his leading rebounder, a 6-3, skinny sophomore shooting guard who knocks down 3-pointers like layups, a 6-5 junior forward/native from Sierra Leone and a 6-3 senior guard who was all-state in high school - in SOCCER.
If CCU wins today, Peterson will have coached one team to the Big Dance and recruited another. I'll take the diamond in the rough over the Pearl in the spotlight.
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Contact TERRY MASSEY at 626-0371 or via e-mail at
tmassey@thesunnews.com.