It's amazing that you think this is bad, yet you have no problem with Buzz wishing Pearl will kick Tennessee's butt for several years.
First off, I thought you said you were done here! Been taking lessons from Adam Howard, have you?
Saturday's comeback fb win over FL was as thrilling as bb comeback wins over Butler and Vanderbilt twice during the one season that we had a coach. That was a big reason why I felt Coach Donnie Tyndall knew what he was doing in his job. I don't see Barnes as having that ability because he needs mostly 4* and at least one 5* player just to compete for a postseason invitation. He could hope for enough Texas talent to matriculate to the Austin campus in order to give all of the Longhorn fans a false sense of his ability to do his job. However, he is now here at Tennessee and there is not enough of this type of talent to get the job done. He has not shown the denser fans that he lacks real coaching talent. But, give him a couple more seasons and maybe the slow learners will finally catch on.
It took 5 years for the fans here to realize that Wade Houston was an inept coach, but after his extremely talented son was no longer around one season, the fans finally got the message. The fans are soon to get the same message about Rick. Only thing is, Rick doesn't have to leave until after 2021. That is unless The University Athletic Dept. wants to cough up one million a year to get rid of him. This will expose Dave Hart's stupidity for making such a deal when he hired this fired loser!
On the other hand, why would you want a quality x's and o's man like Bruce Pearl to just throw games to make Barnes seem to have bb intelligence?
I don't care how good our facilities and fan base are here at UT, it takes finding a diamond in the rough in order to get the coach who can recruit marginal players and then be able to coach them up to a competitive level. Ray Mears, who came from Wittenberg College, Bruce Pearl who came from UW-Milwaukee, and Donnie Tyndall who came from S Miss, via Morehead ST, are all the types of diamonds that I speak of.
The NCAA made a mountain out of a mole hill to get rid of Pearl and it appears they are playing dirty tricks to do the same thing in Donnie's case. Why do they want to do this, you may ask; because they like to protect their sacred cows, such as Kentucky. They'll do it one way or another, even if that means granting immunity to a known liar if he will point an accusatory finger at the person who is gonna destroy their pet school's dominance in the SEC!
The NCAA definitely doesn't want to go through another "Ray Mears Era". In those days, they just had to keep their fingers crossed in hopes that UT would not succeed in getting the "ONLY" invitation to the NCAA tournament. They don't care about this day and time because they feel as though, even if we should ever make the tournament field with Rick Barnes, we'll end up like all the 15 seeds and falter long before the "Final Four". If a coach has the quality of coaching ability that CDT possesses, then they would have their pants/panties scared off should UT make the tournament field. They remember the Morehead upset of one of their other pets...Louisville!
The one time that Mears had a team make the NCAA's...there was a very questionable call at the end of the game which cost UT a win over Dayton on the winners home floor. Kind of reminds me of the questionable call which ended our run at the "Sweet Sixteen" level when Stokes, Maymon, McRae, and J. Rich were on the team. Wonder if the refs are not briefed by the NCAA as to their responsibility in a game of that magnitude? Just saying!
Finally, why is the NCAA so adamant about not wanting UT-Knoxville being in the "Final Four"?
MONEY, which is what they are afraid of losing because many hero-worshippers only see certain schools bb teams being worthy of this destination. To the NCAA, a semifinal run would be bad but a championship game would be disastrous. Why? Because the NCAA thinks that tv ratings would suffer and turn out to be a financial flop!
The NCAA needs a KY-KANS, DUKE-MICH ST, VILLANOVA-NORTH CAROLINA type of matchup to get those high ratings. They don't want another UNLV final four type team. Look what they did to Jerry Tarkanian after he took the Rebels to the final game!