Up until two years ago, Bruce Pearl was about as well known as Larry Reynolds.

Don’t know who Larry Reynolds is? It figures, not many people outside of the Horizon League knew about Pearl either.

Reynolds is the coach of Long Beach State, a team that has won 22 out of 25 games and is reminiscent of the Pearl coached 2005 UW-Milwaukee team that marched their way through the madness and into a surprising Sweet 16 appearance.

While Pearl and Reynolds were no names throughout their early coaching careers, they have a lot in common.

In 1989, when Pearl was on Dr. Tom Davis’ staff at Iowa, Reynolds was an assistant coach under John Masi at Division II UC Riverside.

UC Riverside ended up playing Iowa in a tournament in Hawaii and stunned the talented Hawkeyes by hitting 21 three point shots.

“All the years that I’ve worked with Tom Davis, I’ve never seen him as mad after that game,” Pearl said. “Luckily I wasn’t the assistant that scouted the game."

In 1995, Pearl competed against UC Riverside again, this time as the head coach of Southern Indiana in the Division II Championship game televised nationally on CBS.

Pearl and Southern Indiana ended up coming back from a 30-8 deficit to capture the title.

Masi, who has switched roles with Reynolds is now the associate head coach at Long Beach State.

The 49ers, who led the nation in scoring last year averaging 83.3 points per game have hit a school record 261 three point shots this season.

"Long Beach State is an interesting team," Pearl said. "They remind me a great deal of my old Milwaukee teams and have seven seniors that can all play."

The 49ers feature guard Aaron Nixon, who creates a match-up nightmare for opposing players. The 6-foot-2, 225 pound senior leads LBSU averaging 18.6 points per game.

“He's a bull,” said Pearl. “You guard him with a guard and he'll bull guard him. You guard him with a big and he's too quick."

Nixon, who was the Big West Player of the Year has received help on the perimeter from a pair of guards in Kejuan Johnson and Kevin Houston.

Johnson was named 1st Team All-Big West Conference, while Houston is a threat from three point range connecting on 41.5 percent of his three point attempts.

"They're running Memphis' system,” Pearl said. “The only difference is they shoot it better than Memphis."

In recent NCAA Tournaments, the Big West Conference, noted as a “mid major” conference has damaged many brackets.

In 2004, Pacific a No. 12 seed defeated No. 5 Providence and also upset Pittsburgh in 2005.


NCAA Ready?

LBSU has only played against two NCAA Tournament teams this season, compared to the nine that Tennessee has played.

The Vols are 6-6 against those nine teams (Arkansas, Butler, Florida, Kentucky, Memphis, Ohio State, North Carolina, Texas and Vanderbilt).

LBSU lost 70-61 against USC and 88-58 vs. UCLA earlier in the season.

Coach leads team to tournament and still on hot seat?
 

Even though LBSU's Larry Reynolds was named coach of the year in the Big West Conference, and led the 49ers to the NCAA Tournament his future at LBSU is still up in the air.

The athletic department has not issued a statement regarding Reynolds' contract which expires at the end of the 2007 season.