Another Bruce Pearl assistant is in hot water

Controversy seems to follow Bruce Pearl wherever he goes.

The Auburn Tigers’ head coach has now managed to have not one, but two assistant coaches linked to FBI investigations into college hoops corruption.

You may remember how former Auburn assistant Chuck Person was one of the first coaches to get arrested as a result of the FBI investigation that has rocked college basketball. He was charged with six federal crimes, several of which involved paying players. He’s now set to go on trial in June.

Now, Philly.com is reporting current Auburn assistant Ira Bowman is alleged to have participated in a bribery scheme while he was an assistant coach at Penn.

Bowman was named in federal court on Friday by former Penn head coach Jerome Allen, who pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from a parent to put his son on Penn’s basketball team. Allen testified Bowman continued the scheme after Allen was fired in 2015. Bowman would go on to become an assistant at Auburn in 2018.

It doesn’t sound nearly as bad as the infractions Person committed, but it’s still a bad look for Pearl, who was once fired as head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers for, among other things, lying to NCAA investigators about a recruiting violation that occurred at a seemingly harmless cookout.

Maybe the guy just has really bad luck with these things.