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Post by cherokee04 on Jul 26, 2020 14:11:28 GMT -5
Like others, I became skeptical early on in Barnes' tenure due to what I perceived as a possible lack of effort in recruiting. I realized that we weren't exactly in a strong position to attract top-rated prospects, but had thought the whole idea behind hiring Barnes was that his name would give us some recruiting cache that would yield some very good recruits.
Instead, Barnes adopted a different strategy and it frankly worked out a lot better than I think many of us anticipated.
So in the last year or so and going forward, we are involved with a lot more one-and-done types. And my new (possibly unfounded) concern is that this is a formula for keeping a program competitive and fun to watch, but not built for deep tourney runs, which quite honestly has not been Rick's forte for the bulk of his career.
I'm sure that the rough idea is that you recruit good, solid players that can be developed over time and only augment that with 1-2 guys that are candidates to leave after a season.
So anyway, I was just curious what other thoughts are on whether or not this different recruiting focus from his early tenure here will yield better March results.
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Post by pdlglm on Jul 26, 2020 14:18:12 GMT -5
Like others, I became skeptical early on in Barnes' tenure due to what I perceived as a possible lack of effort in recruiting. I realized that we weren't exactly in a strong position to attract top-rated prospects, but had thought the whole idea behind hiring Barnes was that his name would give us some recruiting cache that would yield some very good recruits. Instead, Barnes adopted a different strategy and it frankly worked out a lot better than I think many of us anticipated. So in the last year or so and going forward, we are involved with a lot more one-and-done types. And my new (possibly unfounded) concern is that this is a formula for keeping a program competitive and fun to watch, but not built for deep tourney runs, which quite honestly has not been Rick's forte for the bulk of his career. I'm sure that the rough idea is that you recruit good, solid players that can be developed over time and only augment that with 1-2 guys that are candidates to leave after a season. So anyway, I was just curious what other thoughts are on whether or not this different recruiting focus from his early tenure here will yield better March results. I think that there are several ways to get deep tourney runs, but they all start with being in the tourney year end and year out. If we do that, I will be pretty happy. |
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Post by cherokee04 on Jul 26, 2020 16:06:17 GMT -5
Like others, I became skeptical early on in Barnes' tenure due to what I perceived as a possible lack of effort in recruiting. I realized that we weren't exactly in a strong position to attract top-rated prospects, but had thought the whole idea behind hiring Barnes was that his name would give us some recruiting cache that would yield some very good recruits. Instead, Barnes adopted a different strategy and it frankly worked out a lot better than I think many of us anticipated. So in the last year or so and going forward, we are involved with a lot more one-and-done types. And my new (possibly unfounded) concern is that this is a formula for keeping a program competitive and fun to watch, but not built for deep tourney runs, which quite honestly has not been Rick's forte for the bulk of his career. I'm sure that the rough idea is that you recruit good, solid players that can be developed over time and only augment that with 1-2 guys that are candidates to leave after a season. So anyway, I was just curious what other thoughts are on whether or not this different recruiting focus from his early tenure here will yield better March results. I think that there are several ways to get deep tourney runs, but they all start with being in the tourney year end and year out. If we do that, I will be pretty happy. I'll be happy being in the tourney most of the time (like UT basketball should expect IMO). But if we are 5 years down the road from here and still have a March track record of eliminations before the Elite Eight, then I will not be very happy about that, particularly if we have had regular seasons that give us reason to believe we've got a legit shot at a Final Four. It's the only mark against Barnes - that over his career his postseason performance has not matched his regular season performance on the whole. |
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Post by bchilds on Jul 26, 2020 23:01:33 GMT -5
I think his type of recruiting can be sustained. Losing 4-5 guys a year is perfectly fine by me. I think it’s where you lose them. 2 seniors and 3 early departures whether it’s by transfer or professional is a recipe for success. They all just can’t be newcomers leaving.
Using the past two years as the mark, many of us thought that if James developed (I am many of us), he could be 1 and done. This was not the case based on the regular season, but he really started to get healthy and turn it on as a very good wing player by sec tournament time. I do not think our incoming freshmen will have the same experience, but it’s not likely that they will reveal their full potential early in the season. But come tournament time, I believe they will.
As pdlglm has said, get to the tournament and you have a chance. Get to the tournament enough in consecutive years sweet 16s will show up. Get to sweet 16s enough and final fours will come. The odds play out. But you have to be in the tournament.
We also see that these coaches still recruit in the 75-175 player ranking range. Just not exclusively anymore. I’ll take a flyer on 2-4 out of 13 in the 75-175 if the other 9-11 will be top 75. and 3-4 are Top 40. Very good teams would be on the floor 2 out of 3 years and probably a great team 1 out 4. A tournament team every year unless injuries took them out.
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Post by afvolunteer on Jul 27, 2020 10:51:35 GMT -5
Yeah, I’m not nearly as smart as some of our other posters on whether this type of recruiting can be sustained, but I can’t complain at all. Taking underestimated, undervalued recruits and having them overachieve is probably the most “fun” thing for me as a fan, but doing that once every 10 years vs just having a class of studs wearing the orange in the NCAAT every single year, well I’d take the latter...all day long.
And I echo what pdl and bchilds said, the NCAAT is a numbers game. Get there enough, and success will eventually come. Plus by the very nature of the 1 and done format, the NCAAT doesn’t truly crown the best team(s), as any team can win 1 game. We see it multiple times every single year. Even baseball’s CWS is more reflective of better teams having deeper runs, with double elimination and at least best of 3 series towards the end. The NCAAT has a ton of luck and timing involved, which is why it’s so exciting. For my money, nothing else in sports gives the underdog such a fighting chance to get national attention. And I wouldn’t change a thing about it!
Either way, every fan has different expectations, and I’ve always said and still maintain that for me and me alone, I just want to be able to consistently pencil in “TN” in my March madness brackets. Anything else is gravy. Especially with Barnes’ significant pay raise, I think he’ll warrant some criticism if he doesn’t make deeper runs. But to me, if he makes the tourney every single year, then he’ll earn whatever $$ we’re paying him (I mean, no coach truly deserves the types of salaries these days, but relatively speaking he’ll have earned it to me at least). But I also think he’ll have burned a considerable amount of equity with some fans due to his huge pay bump if he doesn’t make some deeper runs. It just won’t be as big of a deal to this fan (at least I say that now...ask me again if we lost in round 1 as a favorite and maybe I’ll have changed my mind)!
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Post by cherokee04 on Jul 27, 2020 15:33:26 GMT -5
Yeah, I’m not nearly as smart as some of our other posters on whether this type of recruiting can be sustained, but I can’t complain at all. Taking underestimated, undervalued recruits and having them overachieve is probably the most “fun” thing for me as a fan, but doing that once every 10 years vs just having a class of studs wearing the orange in the NCAAT every single year, well I’d take the latter...all day long. And I echo what pdl and bchilds said, the NCAAT is a numbers game. Get there enough, and success will eventually come. Plus by the very nature of the 1 and done format, the NCAAT doesn’t truly crown the best team(s), as any team can win 1 game. We see it multiple times every single year. Even baseball’s CWS is more reflective of better teams having deeper runs, with double elimination and at least best of 3 series towards the end. The NCAAT has a ton of luck and timing involved, which is why it’s so exciting. For my money, nothing else in sports gives the underdog such a fighting chance to get national attention. And I wouldn’t change a thing about it! Either way, every fan has different expectations, and I’ve always said and still maintain that for me and me alone, I just want to be able to consistently pencil in “TN” in my March madness brackets. Anything else is gravy. Especially with Barnes’ significant pay raise, I think he’ll warrant some criticism if he doesn’t make deeper runs. But to me, if he makes the tourney every single year, then he’ll earn whatever $$ we’re paying him (I mean, no coach truly deserves the types of salaries these days, but relatively speaking he’ll have earned it to me at least). But I also think he’ll have burned a considerable amount of equity with some fans due to his huge pay bump if he doesn’t make some deeper runs. It just won’t be as big of a deal to this fan (at least I say that now...ask me again if we lost in round 1 as a favorite and maybe I’ll have changed my mind)! While by no means am I advocating that we ever start sending moving vans to Barnes' house if he doesn't get us to the Elite Eight or a Final Four, but I can't be quite as satisfied with just getting there when, as you say, Barnes is getting paid among the upper echelon in the game, and also when I see Auburn handing a Final Four banner. I should probably get past that, but I just can't. It's disgusting. As far as the numbers game, UT has been to 22 tourneys now I think - Seven times in the Sweet 16, one Elite Eight, no Final Fours. Barnes needs to get us deep into the tourney. If he doesn't, he doesn't, and his tenure will still have been good for UT because we might have floundered around for who knows how long if he hadn't come in at a time when UT likely would have had trouble hiring another top notch coach. And if the program stays very competitive and making tourneys while Barnes continues to coach, then the Vols should be in a much stronger position to make our next eventual hire. But I want some March success. It has not really been Rick's strength, even before he got to UT. |
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Post by pdlglm on Jul 27, 2020 16:01:27 GMT -5
Yeah, I’m not nearly as smart as some of our other posters on whether this type of recruiting can be sustained, but I can’t complain at all. Taking underestimated, undervalued recruits and having them overachieve is probably the most “fun” thing for me as a fan, but doing that once every 10 years vs just having a class of studs wearing the orange in the NCAAT every single year, well I’d take the latter...all day long. And I echo what pdl and bchilds said, the NCAAT is a numbers game. Get there enough, and success will eventually come. Plus by the very nature of the 1 and done format, the NCAAT doesn’t truly crown the best team(s), as any team can win 1 game. We see it multiple times every single year. Even baseball’s CWS is more reflective of better teams having deeper runs, with double elimination and at least best of 3 series towards the end. The NCAAT has a ton of luck and timing involved, which is why it’s so exciting. For my money, nothing else in sports gives the underdog such a fighting chance to get national attention. And I wouldn’t change a thing about it! Either way, every fan has different expectations, and I’ve always said and still maintain that for me and me alone, I just want to be able to consistently pencil in “TN” in my March madness brackets. Anything else is gravy. Especially with Barnes’ significant pay raise, I think he’ll warrant some criticism if he doesn’t make deeper runs. But to me, if he makes the tourney every single year, then he’ll earn whatever $$ we’re paying him (I mean, no coach truly deserves the types of salaries these days, but relatively speaking he’ll have earned it to me at least). But I also think he’ll have burned a considerable amount of equity with some fans due to his huge pay bump if he doesn’t make some deeper runs. It just won’t be as big of a deal to this fan (at least I say that now...ask me again if we lost in round 1 as a favorite and maybe I’ll have changed my mind)! While by no means am I advocating that we ever start sending moving vans to Barnes' house if he doesn't get us to the Elite Eight or a Final Four, but I can't be quite as satisfied with just getting there when, as you say, Barnes is getting paid among the upper echelon in the game, and also when I see Auburn handing a Final Four banner. I should probably get past that, but I just can't. It's disgusting. As far as the numbers game, UT has been to 22 tourneys now I think - Seven times in the Sweet 16, one Elite Eight, no Final Fours. Barnes needs to get us deep into the tourney. If he doesn't, he doesn't, and his tenure will still have been good for UT because we might have floundered around for who knows how long if he hadn't come in at a time when UT likely would have had trouble hiring another top notch coach. And if the program stays very competitive and making tourneys while Barnes continues to coach, then the Vols should be in a much stronger position to make our next eventual hire. But I want some March success. It has not really been Rick's strength, even before he got to UT. Honestly, Tennessee making a final four seems like such a fairy tale that it is hard for me to list that as a criteria by which I would judge any UT coach. As to how much he is paid, if he is paid market rates and we needed to do so to keep him - that doesn't really factor into my thoughts. |
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Post by cherokee04 on Jul 27, 2020 16:51:03 GMT -5
While by no means am I advocating that we ever start sending moving vans to Barnes' house if he doesn't get us to the Elite Eight or a Final Four, but I can't be quite as satisfied with just getting there when, as you say, Barnes is getting paid among the upper echelon in the game, and also when I see Auburn handing a Final Four banner. I should probably get past that, but I just can't. It's disgusting. As far as the numbers game, UT has been to 22 tourneys now I think - Seven times in the Sweet 16, one Elite Eight, no Final Fours. Barnes needs to get us deep into the tourney. If he doesn't, he doesn't, and his tenure will still have been good for UT because we might have floundered around for who knows how long if he hadn't come in at a time when UT likely would have had trouble hiring another top notch coach. And if the program stays very competitive and making tourneys while Barnes continues to coach, then the Vols should be in a much stronger position to make our next eventual hire. But I want some March success. It has not really been Rick's strength, even before he got to UT. Honestly, Tennessee making a final four seems like such a fairy tale that it is hard for me to list that as a criteria by which I would judge any UT coach. As to how much he is paid, if he is paid market rates and we needed to do so to keep him - that doesn't really factor into my thoughts. I think market rates are likely set in part by postseason success. Again, I'm not advocating that we dump Barnes, but if he can't get us deeper into the tourney than he has done so far before he steps aside, then yeah I'd say we could make a pretty good argument that we overpaid. But that is of course in hindsight and AD's can't negotiate contract extensions that way, I get it. But with Pearl taking Auburn's pitiful program to a FF, I can't say I think UT getting there is a fairy tale. Auburn is not remotely in the same category in hoops as UT historically. So if Auburn can hang a banner, then you better believe that is my expectation for UT. It's not a fire-the-coach expectation, but AU making it just put more heat on UT to do so. That their backwater program can get there before us is embarrassing to me. |
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Post by bchilds on Jul 27, 2020 17:12:13 GMT -5
I am certainly chasing the carrot here, but if Barnes is forced to leave as opposed to retiring at Tennessee, who is an upgrade that would take the position? Below is an article of best young coaches. Smile at #26 and cringe at #3. Almost all of the young ones are gambles. Do you go after a seasoned coach like Anthony Grant or Steve Forbes if he does well? Grant struggled in the SEC before but he can recruit and relate to players. At the level Barnes has done? Ehhhh. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/29157808/40-40-rank-best-young-coaches-college-basketballMaybe it’s the scientist in me, but in many cases, things can get worse. Last season wasn’t great, but it definitely can be worse. |
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Post by cherokee04 on Jul 27, 2020 18:59:57 GMT -5
I am certainly chasing the carrot here, but if Barnes is forced to leave as opposed to retiring at Tennessee, who is an upgrade that would take the position? Below is an article of best young coaches. Smile at #26 and cringe at #3. Almost all of the young ones are gambles. Do you go after a seasoned coach like Anthony Grant or Steve Forbes if he does well? Grant struggled in the SEC before but he can recruit and relate to players. At the level Barnes has done? Ehhhh. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/29157808/40-40-rank-best-young-coaches-college-basketballMaybe it’s the scientist in me, but in many cases, things can get worse. Last season wasn’t great, but it definitely can be worse. Things can always get worse, but they can get better too. There's just no way to know which hires work out and which don't ahead of time. And sometimes it's not the coach being bad but maybe the timing is wrong for him to take a certain level job. But I don't think anyone is really talking about Barnes being forced out. I do think he has made this job much more appealing to a lot of coaches now than it was at the time we hired him. If you're just throwing out a hypothetical though, then if thing unraveled to the point that UT forced Barnes out, then that would likely mean we were back in a ditch again, and hiring good coaches gets harder. I still believe that some would have seen what Barnes showed was possible at UT (though that case would really be bolstered if he could make a deep tourney run or two). Who could UT realistically hire? No way to know, but I think the job would be attractive to a number of strong candidates. Whether a particular strong candidate would have big success here is unknowable. JMO |
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Post by bchilds on Jul 27, 2020 22:58:13 GMT -5
I am certainly chasing the carrot here, but if Barnes is forced to leave as opposed to retiring at Tennessee, who is an upgrade that would take the position? Below is an article of best young coaches. Smile at #26 and cringe at #3. Almost all of the young ones are gambles. Do you go after a seasoned coach like Anthony Grant or Steve Forbes if he does well? Grant struggled in the SEC before but he can recruit and relate to players. At the level Barnes has done? Ehhhh. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/29157808/40-40-rank-best-young-coaches-college-basketballMaybe it’s the scientist in me, but in many cases, things can get worse. Last season wasn’t great, but it definitely can be worse. Things can always get worse, but they can get better too. There's just no way to know which hires work out and which don't ahead of time. And sometimes it's not the coach being bad but maybe the timing is wrong for him to take a certain level job. But I don't think anyone is really talking about Barnes being forced out. I do think he has made this job much more appealing to a lot of coaches now than it was at the time we hired him. If you're just throwing out a hypothetical though, then if thing unraveled to the point that UT forced Barnes out, then that would likely mean we were back in a ditch again, and hiring good coaches gets harder. I still believe that some would have seen what Barnes showed was possible at UT (though that case would really be bolstered if he could make a deep tourney run or two). Who could UT realistically hire? No way to know, but I think the job would be attractive to a number of strong candidates. Whether a particular strong candidate would have big success here is unknowable. JMO Definitely a hypothetical. It would be bad for him to get fired. Things would have to get abysmal. |
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Post by pdlglm on Jul 27, 2020 23:07:57 GMT -5
Things can always get worse, but they can get better too. There's just no way to know which hires work out and which don't ahead of time. And sometimes it's not the coach being bad but maybe the timing is wrong for him to take a certain level job. But I don't think anyone is really talking about Barnes being forced out. I do think he has made this job much more appealing to a lot of coaches now than it was at the time we hired him. If you're just throwing out a hypothetical though, then if thing unraveled to the point that UT forced Barnes out, then that would likely mean we were back in a ditch again, and hiring good coaches gets harder. I still believe that some would have seen what Barnes showed was possible at UT (though that case would really be bolstered if he could make a deep tourney run or two). Who could UT realistically hire? No way to know, but I think the job would be attractive to a number of strong candidates. Whether a particular strong candidate would have big success here is unknowable. JMO Definitely a hypothetical. It would be bad for him to get fired. Things would have to get abysmal. my worst fear when things weren't looking great early for Barnes was that he would fail at UT and then we would spend a generation with people saying... 'see, even Rick Barnes couldn't win there.' That wouldn't have been fair, you could just as easily have said in such a case that the game had passes him by... but there would have been a bunch of folks who would have taken the former tack. |
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Post by afvolunteer on Jul 27, 2020 23:17:59 GMT -5
I am certainly chasing the carrot here, but if Barnes is forced to leave as opposed to retiring at Tennessee, who is an upgrade that would take the position? Below is an article of best young coaches. Smile at #26 and cringe at #3. Almost all of the young ones are gambles. Do you go after a seasoned coach like Anthony Grant or Steve Forbes if he does well? Grant struggled in the SEC before but he can recruit and relate to players. At the level Barnes has done? Ehhhh. www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/29157808/40-40-rank-best-young-coaches-college-basketballMaybe it’s the scientist in me, but in many cases, things can get worse. Last season wasn’t great, but it definitely can be worse. Things can always get worse, but they can get better too. There's just no way to know which hires work out and which don't ahead of time. And sometimes it's not the coach being bad but maybe the timing is wrong for him to take a certain level job. But I don't think anyone is really talking about Barnes being forced out. I do think he has made this job much more appealing to a lot of coaches now than it was at the time we hired him. If you're just throwing out a hypothetical though, then if thing unraveled to the point that UT forced Barnes out, then that would likely mean we were back in a ditch again, and hiring good coaches gets harder. I still believe that some would have seen what Barnes showed was possible at UT (though that case would really be bolstered if he could make a deep tourney run or two). Who could UT realistically hire? No way to know, but I think the job would be attractive to a number of strong candidates. Whether a particular strong candidate would have big success here is unknowable. JMO cherokee, first of all I don't think you ever need to apologize for being disgusted with Auburn's FF banner. It's disgusting because of the reasons you've mentioned, but we all know it's also disgusting because they did it with Pearl. Obviously worth an entirely separate thread. And this thread has sort of deviated a bit from what you intended I think, but I started thinking about Barnes and his "lack of deep postseason runs" and I also think it may be worse than we're making it out to be. First of all, he does have a FF banner to hang. TN does not. Granted, it's the furthest he's made it and he has only done it once which I think is where his deep rooted lack of postseason success comes from. But making it to the Top 4 out of 350 some odd teams is legitimately a tough exercise, particularly for me since I do consider it a bit of luck and timing involved due to the single elimination format. And he's only made it to 2 Elite 8's. Which I'll concede is relatively weak on the surface. But without boring everyone with the details, relative to his KenPom ranking, his teams are relatively consistent with making it about as far as they should in the tourney. As an example of what I mean, 2 years ago when we had our best team in a long while, we got knocked off by Purdue in the Sweet 16. We finished the year KP #10. Instead of that Purdue overtime loss, had we won the game, we're outperforming our KP #10 by making the final 8 teams at a minimum. If we'd have instead been knocked out by Iowa in round 2, and we'd have underperformed that ranking by only making it to the final 32 team, but not the final 16. So we ended the season pretty close to where on paper we should have (not lost on me is the fact that if we beat Purdue, then by definition our KP rank goes up slightly, but I digress). And I guess I did bore with details, and here are some more. Including his teams at TN & Texas, I counted about 5 times his teams exited the tourney right about where they should have, 5 times where they overachieved a bit, and 7 times where they underachieved. By comparison, Coach K over that same time period also had about 5 times where he exited about where the numbers suggested, overachieved a bit twice, but fell short of where they should've a whopping 11 times, 7 of which where they got knocked out multiple rounds earlier than they should've. But coach K is rightly so considered a much better postseason coach, because of all the success he's had there (relative performance notwithstanding).
Anyway, my whole point was this mantra that Barnes is a good coach during the year, but chokes in the postseason, doesn't really align with his historical KP rankings and where his teams exited. I also know that's not really what you're arguing, and furthermore that by definition a team's KP ranking is also a result of the head coach recruiting, coaching, and executing with the players he's recruited so none of it really matters. But honestly, Coach Krzyzewski is probably a much worse "postseason coach" than Barnes is if one looks at where they "should" exit the tourney given how they've performed over the season (thus their KP ranking), and where they actually did exit.
Tying things back together, one would think that with these better caliber of players Barnes is recruiting, we should be "better" during the year and then that postseason success should come with it. Taking the Texas fan emotion out of it, Barnes' teams historically have performed in the postseason pretty close to where one would expect. So "if" our recruiting continues on this path and "if" that means we're a better team because of it during the season, either only 1 of 2 things can happen: 1) We'll finally start seeing that deeper postseason success that we want, or 2) Barnes will actually start under-performing in the postseason.
Disclaimer...what I posted above, well even I think it's a bit of a stretch to believe all of that.
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Post by afvolunteer on Jul 27, 2020 23:33:02 GMT -5
Again, not that the final four is necessarily the definition of deep postseason success, but out of curiosity I just looked it up and out of the 351 or whatever current head coaches, here's who has been to more final fours than Barnes (& still coaching somewhere) and how many FF appearances they have in parentheses (I'm not counting the vacated ones):
Coach K (12) Roy Williams (9, though some should've been vacated!) Izzo (8) Boeheim (5) Pitino (5)
Calipari (4) Ben Howland (3) Bill Self (3) Jay Wright (3) Huggins (2) Lon Kruger (2)
That's it. 11 names and a few of those sleazeballs probably can be thrown out for blatant cheating. So being conservative, I'd say maybe 9 decently above board coaches who've had more postseason success than Barnes? If I'm a TN fan and my coach is next on the list past these guys, I can sleep at night. For reference, there are 15 active coaches who, like Barnes, have only been to 1 final four. Notables on that list: Pearl (yuck), Mark Few, Dana Altman, Frank Martin, Gregg Marshall, and Bruce Weber.
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Post by cherokee04 on Jul 28, 2020 9:53:08 GMT -5
Again, not that the final four is necessarily the definition of deep postseason success, but out of curiosity I just looked it up and out of the 351 or whatever current head coaches, here's who has been to more final fours than Barnes (& still coaching somewhere) and how many FF appearances they have in parentheses (I'm not counting the vacated ones):
Coach K (12) Roy Williams (9, though some should've been vacated!) Izzo (8) Boeheim (5) Pitino (5)
Calipari (4) Ben Howland (3) Bill Self (3) Jay Wright (3) Huggins (2) Lon Kruger (2)
That's it. 11 names and a few of those sleazeballs probably can be thrown out for blatant cheating. So being conservative, I'd say maybe 9 decently above board coaches who've had more postseason success than Barnes? If I'm a TN fan and my coach is next on the list past these guys, I can sleep at night. For reference, there are 15 active coaches who, like Barnes, have only been to 1 final four. Notables on that list: Pearl (yuck), Mark Few, Dana Altman, Frank Martin, Gregg Marshall, and Bruce Weber.
I would agree that the Final Four is not the sole barometer of a coach's postseason success. Even if we are looking only at Final Fours, that is 26 coaches who have equaled or exceeded Barnes' number. That doesn't mean he sucks. But I think his overall tourney performance is not great. I went through it in detail in a post awhile back when we still had Hoopsville on 247. But the bottom line is that if you look at his regular season performances and his postseason performances, he's been far better in the regular season. Getting TO the postseason obviously matters a lot, and Barnes has done that with amazing consistency - we would not have made it last year had the season not been pre-empted, but I don't have a major issue with a rebuilding season here and there, and the overall direction of the program is still clearly very strong. But all I am saying is that Barnes needs to do more in the postseason than he has. His one FF was in 2003. OK, so I decided to go ahead and look it up again to summarize it: Barnes has been to 24 NCAAT's: Knocked out in the first round - 11 times; 3 of those were at Providence, but also 2 of his 3 tourneys at Clemson were 1st round knockouts, and 6 of 16 at Texas were. Knocked out in the second round - 6 times, 5 of those at Texas and 1 at Tennessee Knocked out in the Sweet 16 - 4 times (1 at Clemson and Tennessee, 2 at Texas) Made the Elite Eight - twice, both at Texas Final Four - 1, at Texas A few notes: Out of 24 appearances, almost half were first round eliminations, and he has not made it past the first weekend 17 times. His strongest run was in the seven year period between 2001 and 2008, where he made hay - he had a FF, 2 Elite Eights and 2 Sweet 16s Since 2008, his past 11 seasons, he has made it past the round of 32 once, ending in the Sweet 16 two years ago. His overall NCAAT record stands at 24-24 unless I have calculated wrong in my head, based on those finishes. The man does not suck as a basketball coach. He is in fact a very good coach. He gets to the tourney at a very high rate. But his performance in March, while not awful, is not exactly great either, and I continue to believe that the only blemish on his coaching resume is the contrast between his regular season results and what he has done in March. Texas is now probably wishing they still had Barnes instead of Shaka Smart, but I can also understand why the Longhorns decided to make a change, after not advancing past the second round of the tourney over his last 7 seasons there. Maybe time will still prove that it was a mistake for them to do it, but it's not hard to see how they could have gotten quite spoiled by making it TO the tourney but also frustrated by not going further. In his five seasons with the Vols, (I will ignore the first two seasons where he inherited a mess and was trying to build the program), you could make a pretty good argument in fact that his March success has been better than his career track, as he has no 1st round eliminations and a Sweet 16. I am still a Barnes supporter obviously - it would be foolish (IMO) not to be. And I want to see him make a deep run in the tourney at UT. For me, that means an Elite Eight or beyond, my own personal definition. Yes, I am as aware of UT's postseason history of frustration as anyone else, so I'm not suggesting that Rick is somehow falling below UT's historical postseason standards. I want Rick to win at UT, and I want him to do better in March than he has has over the majority of his career. That's all I'm saying in my typically spare way, with an economy of words...  |
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