happened during TNT Sports\u2019 pregame show <\/a>before the women\u2019s Big Ten Tournament championship game between the Hawkeyes and Bruins.<\/p>\n\u201cIowa women\u2019s basketball. No superstar Caitlin Smith,\u201d Pearl started off saying. \u201cNo Hall of Fame coaches. C. Vivian Stringer.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"TNT](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5d9413865bfbf9aa1d66e2a64db64264.jpeg\"\/)
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TNT analyst Bruce Pearl Getty Images<\/p>\n
At that point, one of his fellow panellists corrected him and he acknowledged the mistake, \u201cYou\u2019re right, Caitlin Clark.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then proceeded to refer to Bluder as \u201cLisa Blunder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bluder had retired two seasons ago and Clark made the jump from the college ranks to the pros in 2024.<\/p>\n
The mix-up with the names wasn\u2019t the only notable moment for Pearl during Sunday\u2019s broadcast.<\/p>\n
In a turning of the tide, Pearl told the audience that now he not only believes the undefeated Miami (Ohio) RedHawks deserve to make the NCAA Tournament, but that he\u2018s \u201crooting\u201d for two teams from the MAC to make it into March Madness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey may not be the best team in the MAC,\u201d Pearl said. \u201cIt might be Akron. It might be the Zips. Five years in a row, they\u2019ve won 22-plus games. \u2026 I\u2019m rooting for Akron to make the upset, that way two teams get to the NCAA Tournament out of the MAC.\u201d<\/p>\n
Panalist Adam Zucker asked, \u201cYou\u2019re putting Miami (Ohio) in?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m putting Miami (Ohio) in! They\u2019re in!\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n
![\"Indiana](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2b477b8dbe4199f746e45651150714af.jpeg\"\/)
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Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark supported her team last season. JASON SZENES\/NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n
Pearl has previously questioned whether Miami (Ohio) would be deserving of an at-large bid as some of the power conference teams.<\/p>\n
Pearl, whose son took over at Auburn as head coach, stumped for the Tigers as well on air.<\/p>\n
The remarks by Pearl angered Miami (Ohio) athletic director and he fired back, calling Pearl\u2019s remarks \u201cawful\u201d disrespect. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows TNT analyst Bruce Pearl, Image 2 shows Caitlin Clark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[3077,232447,1760,232446,2839,37758,221541,232448,2821,6454,99,434],"class_list":["post-512735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-bruce-pearl","tag-c-vivian-stringer","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-caitlin-smith","tag-indiana-fever","tag-iowa-womens-basketball","tag-lisa-bluder","tag-lisa-blunder","tag-miami","tag-ohio","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5e96929dea2c377e4a89ad4d597b5948.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n