What’s wild is that we haven’t even been crap. We are a top 4-5 SEC program all time, basically neck and neck with bama in all metrics. We are now the winningest program in the NCAAT to not make a F4 (tied with Xavier). We really undersell ourselves here bc of the 90s/early 2000s, but we have been nationally competitive for much of our history. The fact we haven’t broken through is just such an anomaly. It doesn’t make me care less, but it’s just back breaking at some point. Hard to explain.
I still get excited about it all bc I’m a fan and I love UT hoops more than most anything else in the world. But I agree, it feels like there’s always some impending doom on us when we make the tourney. I’d rather be making the second weekend consistently like we are now, than how we’ve been the rest of my life (28), but it’s just so taxing to know there’s a wall we can’t break through. Idk this is drunk rambling a bit, but it’s just how it is for us and it sucks.
Look I like Caldwell but she went just .500 in SEC play this year, which is only the 3rd time in school history that the LVs failed to have a winning record in the conference. She may be a good coach but the jury is still very much out on whether or not she is “Tennessee good” which is a very different standard in Pat’s program.
Disappointed right now, but I enjoy having a competitive team to watch during those long cold winter evenings. I’m able to appreciate a good to really good team even without a final four which appears to have me in the minority. Barnes is a fine coach and a better person who’s easy to pull for and he recruits similar players. Hope he returns for at least another season!
