Rick Barnes is one of the best college basketball coaches in the country. In his fourth year at Tennessee he has built a monster program already. But, the real question is, how did Tennessee get lucky enough to land one of the best coaches in the country.
Barnes spent 17 years at the University of Texas landing in the NCAA Tournament 16 of his 17 years, and going to one final four. With a record at Texas of 402-180 Barnes job seemed to be locked up. Â Then in 2015, Texas did the unthinkable, they would go ahead and fire Barnes. Not only did they fire one of the best coaches in the country, but they replaced him with former VCU coach Shaka Smart.
Smart has been a catastrophe since taking the Texas job compared to what Barnes was able to do. In four years at Texas, Smart is 60-57 if we compare that to Barnes’s 402-180,its not even close and easy to say Texas made a huge mistake. Not only was Barnes able to win almost every year, but he also recruited top NBA talent such as, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Durant, D.J. Augustine, P.J. Tucker and T.J. Ford.
Barnes is a fantastic coach and has proved that last year posting a 26-9 record and making the NCAA Tournament for the first time. This year Barnes has the Volunteers sitting as the #1 team in the country with a 15-1 record. An astonishing stat about Barnes is before he got to Tennessee he had been to 17 straight NCAA Tournament appearences, A LEGENDARY RUN.
Overall I think Tennessee knows how lucky they are to have such a great coach like Rick Barnes, but for the life of me, I don’t understand why Texas ever fired Barnes. In 17 years he missed the NCAA Tournament ONE TIME. That is nothing short of incredible. It has taken Barnes two years longer to fix Tennessee due to all the sanctions and the disaster Bruce Pearl left the program in.
But, I think it’s safe to say that Barnes has got it rocking at Tennessee and we could see Tennessee in our brackets for a very very long time. The Volunteers were knocked out in the second round last year in the round of 32 to the Cinderella Story of the NCAA tournament the Loyola Ramblers, keeping it close they eventually lost at the buzzer at the hands of Clayton Custer.
Tennessee is absolutely legitiment contenders this year, and don’t be surprised if we see them in the final four. With all the drama from Bruce Pearl, to Donnie Tyndall getting completely blacklisted, the University of Tennessee basketball is in a very good place and will continue to be in a good place for a VERY long time.
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