Gary Parrish in Memphis said that a few years back he spoke to Pearl. This was when Pearl was still under his show-cause.
Pearl told him at the time that he wanted to get back in the game, but he wanted to get back somewhere where the basketball program hadn't had a lot of success, but somewhere where the university had had championship level success in other major programs, namely football. His reasoning is that he wanted to go somewhere where they would appreciate success, but he also wanted to make sure it would be an athletic department that had proven they would make a championship level commitment to sports.
Parrish said at the time his first thoughts were Georgia and Auburn. Clearly he ended up at Auburn.
My guess is Pearl will have them in the Sweet Sixteen at some point in the next 4 years or so.