2. A botched hire leads to another search
Another mark against Dave Hart came in 2015 when it was decided the Vols would have to fire head basketball coach Donnie Tyndall a mere year after hiring him.
It was reported shortly after the Vols hired Tyndall in 2014 that he and his former school, Southern Miss, were under investigation by the NCAA for academic misconduct done under his watch at the university, and Vol fans were outraged that Hart and the rest of the athletic department didn’t have a more thorough vetting process when looking for a head coach.
The Vols basketball team had already been burned by the NCAA with Bruce Pearl at the helm half a decade ago, and thanks to a lack of proper digging, the Vols found themselves in similar waters in 2015. Hart terminated Tyndall’s contract a year after hiring him because the NCAA was going to punish Tyndall and Southern Miss for giving improper benefits to players, and the Vols had to look for their third head coach in two years.
Tennessee got lucky and ended up hiring Rick Barnes after he departed from Texas, but the mishandling of Tyndall’s situation gave Hart detractors even more reason to distrust him.
