Rick Barnes discussion (merged)

#7,752
#7,752
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Dumb argument. 16, 24 team fields. AND they didn’t seed the teams.
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Yeah some people refuse to listen. It was a much more difficult field back then. We get the luxury of playing teams seeded in the 60s and 30s compared to whenever they used to have to come out of the gate playing one of the better teams in the country in the first round. There weren’t any 15th seeded St Peter’s to Molly whop in the first round.
 
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#7,754
#7,754
VolPack22 said:
Yeah some people refuse to listen. It was a much more difficult field back then. We get the luxury of playing teams seeded in the 60s and 30s compared to whenever they used to have to come out of the gate playing one of the better teams in the country in the first round. There weren’t any 15th seeded St Peter’s to Molly whop in the first round.
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Yeah, Dayton and VMI are world beaters.

Barnes and Pearl have beaten blue bloods like Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, etc. I would argue the sport has more parity than ever in the Barnes era. You have teams like Florida Atlantic, Loyola, etc. making runs while the SEC has multiple teams ranked in the top 25 regularly with top 10 recruiting classes. SEC wasn't near that strong in the Mears era outside of Kentucky.
 
#7,756
#7,756
VolPack22 said:
I love Rick Barnes as much as anyone but the way some people brush Ray Mears to the side is crazy. The NCAAT was only 16 teams during the majority of his time and then only went to 32 towards the end of his time. It was a lot harder to even make the tournament back then. He finished 1st or 2nd in the conference 11 times in 15 seasons. That’s pretty incredible. Let’s not forget about him.
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Was anyone forgetting him?
 
#7,758
#7,758
volbound1700 said:
Yeah, Dayton and VMI are world beaters.

Barnes and Pearl have beaten blue bloods like Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, etc. I would argue the sport has more parity than ever in the Barnes era. You have teams like Florida Atlantic, Loyola, etc. making runs while the SEC has multiple teams ranked in the top 25 regularly with top 10 recruiting classes. SEC wasn't near that strong in the Mears era outside of Kentucky.
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Dayton was the NCAA Tournament runner up that year. Stop posting.
 
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#7,759
#7,759
#7,760
#7,760
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Dayton was the NCAA Tournament runner up that year. Stop posting.
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Florida Atlantic and Loyola were both in the Final Four yet you guys give Rick Barnes grief for losing to them.

SEC and the sport as a whole is far stronger and harder to win in now than it was in 1970s. Most years in the 1970s, if you could beat Kentucky, you could win the SEC and make it to the NCAA.

Again, Mears NEVER won a game in the post season so hard to rank him as higher than both Barnes and Pearl.

The team that Barnes has this year is better than any team we had in Mears era.
 
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#7,761
#7,761
volbound1700 said:
Florida Atlantic and Loyola were both in the Final Four yet you guys give Rick Barnes grief for losing to them.

SEC and the sport as a whole is far stronger and harder to win in now than it was in 1970s. Most years in the 1970s, if you could beat Kentucky, you could win the SEC and make it to the NCAA.

Again, Mears NEVER won a game in the post season so hard to rank him as higher than both Barnes and Pearl.

The team that Barnes has this year is better than any team we had in Mears era.
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You guys? I’ve never once given Barnes grief for losing to Loyola or FAU.

Your Mears ignorance is sad. Comparing the current NCAAT to what it was 60 years ago is naive. The NIT had better competition than what the high seeds now face in the first week of the current NCAAT.

Mears went 16-2 in the SEC in 1976-77. That remains the highest winning percentage that TN has ever had in the SEC regular season.
 
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#7,762
#7,762
Thunder Good-Oil said:
You guys? I’ve never once given Barnes grief for losing to Loyola or FAU.

Your Mears ignorance is sad. Comparing the current NCAAT to what it was 60 years ago is naive. The NIT had better competition than what the high seeds now face in the first week of the current NCAAT.

Mears went 16-2 in the SEC in 1976-77. That remains the highest winning percentage that TN has ever had in the SEC regular season.
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SEC was mediocre back then. Look at SEC today with 5-6 teams ranked in top 25 all season. Beating Blue Bloods from other leagues. You didn't see that in the 1970s outside of Kentucky.

Your post about NCAAT is insane. There is more parity in the sport today than ever before. I may concede the first game most of the times (like Saint Peters) but I would argue Creighton and Texas were far better than VMI and on par with Dayton, etc. We have played great teams in both Tournament and Regular season with Barnes and Pearl as well.
 
#7,764
#7,764
volbound1700 said:
SEC was mediocre back then. Look at SEC today with 5-6 teams ranked in top 25 all season. Beating Blue Bloods from other leagues. You didn't see that in the 1970s outside of Kentucky.

Your post about NCAAT is insane. There is more parity in the sport today than ever before. I may concede the first game most of the times (like Saint Peters) but I would argue Creighton and Texas were far better than VMI and on par with Dayton, etc. We have played great teams in both Tournament and Regular season with Barnes and Pearl as well.
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No, actually it wasn't.
 
#7,765
#7,765
BernardKingGOAT said:
No, actually it wasn't.
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It actually was outside of UK. No one cared about Basketball.

Also, a 24-team tournament would be almost equivalent of starting the NCAA Tournament in 2nd round or Sweet 16. Both Pearl and Barnes have an Elite 8, so it is equivalent to at least winning 1 game in the post season in the Mear's era, something he did NOT do.

He was still a good coach, and I would put him 3rd after Barnes and Pearl but he didn't achieved what the other two achieved.
 
#7,766
#7,766
volbound1700 said:
It actually was outside of UK. No one cared about Basketball.

Also, a 24-team tournament would be almost equivalent of starting the NCAA Tournament in 2nd round or Sweet 16. Both Pearl and Barnes have an Elite 8, so it is equivalent to at least winning 1 game in the post season in the Mear's era, something he did NOT do.

He was still a good coach, and I would put him 3rd after Barnes and Pearl but he didn't achieved what the other two achieved.
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TN had NEVER been to the NCAAT before Mears. Your trashing of the man is insane.
 
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#7,767
#7,767
volbound1700 said:
It actually was outside of UK. No one cared about Basketball.

Also, a 24-team tournament would be almost equivalent of starting the NCAA Tournament in 2nd round or Sweet 16. Both Pearl and Barnes have an Elite 8, so it is equivalent to at least winning 1 game in the post season in the Mear's era, something he did NOT do.

He was still a good coach, and I would put him 3rd after Barnes and Pearl but he didn't achieved what the other two achieved.
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Your first two comments are factually false
 
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#7,768
#7,768
volbound1700 said:
Florida Atlantic and Loyola were both in the Final Four yet you guys give Rick Barnes grief for losing to them.

SEC and the sport as a whole is far stronger and harder to win in now than it was in 1970s. Most years in the 1970s, if you could beat Kentucky, you could win the SEC and make it to the NCAA.

Again, Mears NEVER won a game in the post season so hard to rank him as higher than both Barnes and Pearl.

The team that Barnes has this year is better than any team we had in Mears era.
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The problem with the FAU and Loyola losses is how well the brackets set up for us if we just won those games that we clearly had the better talent on.

Just like in the Bruce years when we blew that 19 point lead to Ohio State. That was the year George Mason ran to the Final 4. Had we finished off OSU, we had a fairly favored pathway to Final 4.

That is only grief i have for those two losses.

FAU sticks out to me because Olivier shot his load all in the Duke game and no showed vs FAU
 
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#7,771
#7,771
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Most of TN’s NCAAT appearances would not have happened if the other 5 TN coaches that have been to the NCAAT were also coaching in eras when only one SEC team was invited.

Mears had 15 winning seasons in 15 years after taking over a 4-19 program.

Mears has 3 SEC regular season championships. More than ANY OTHER UT coach.

Mears took down KY and Baron Rupp as the SECs only relevant program.
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People don't understand that Mears has 14 consecutive NCAA T appearances if the tournament rules were the same as they are now.

Basketball is universally worse now than it used to be. Players like DK were common in CBB in the Mears era. Now 90 percent of what would be elite players are in the pros after their freshman year. One and dones have weakened both the NBA and NCAA basketball. Imagine a world where Kentucky's 38-1 team returns every player the next year. Then it was back again the year after. That used to happen. It's why elite teams were so hard to topple.

We were without King for the VMI game and they had a future NBA player who was the So Con player of the year 3 years in a row. They also beat a very good DePaul team in the next round that had two NBA players on it, as they made the Elite Eight.

Mears probably has 20+ career NCAA tournament wins in a modern, 68 team, seeded format. We finished in the top 20 in the AP poll at times under Mears and didn't get in the tournament. We finished 14-4 in the SEC, tied for first, and didn't make the tournament. In 15 years, Mears finished in the lower half of the SEC one time, 7th his first year. He finished 5th twice. He finished 3rd or better 12 times.

Mears was elite.
 
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#7,772
#7,772
volbound1700 said:
He didn't win a game in it. He didn't necessarily play world beaters either:

Dayton, VMI, and Syracuse. Syracuse is understandable but how do you lose to VMI? That is like Calipari losing to Oakland.
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No King, VMI had a future NBA player that was 3x So Con PoY, and they made the Elite 8 that year. They beat DePaul in the next round, who had two future NBA players themselves. VMI was a good team. Bad teams didn't make the tournament then.
 
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#7,774
#7,774
Thunder Good-Oil said:
Dayton was the NCAA Tournament runner up that year. Stop posting.
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I was gonna say - Dayton was a top 10 team and the tournament back then started with the round of 16.
We had to play them in Dayton as well, I believe.

The King-Grunfeld group was easily the most talented team in Vol basketball history and it's not even close.
Sorry "volbound", but that team would wipe the floor with any of Barnes' teams or Pearl's or Devoe's.
They did underachieve in the NCAA's, though they suffered very bad luck with King being out vs VMI and playing with a broken thumb vs Boheim's first Syracuse team.

The 1972 team was the real heartbreaker, losing to Kentucky by 2 in Stokley at the end of the season to wind up in a tie for the SEC championship but losing the NCAA bid to the tiebreaker.
That team was so upset over that loss that they voted to decline their NIT bid, when the NIT still meant a lot. I didn't blame them, I was at that Ky game.

I will always hold Coach Mears in the highest regard - we should honor him with much more than a damn meeting room in the basement of TBA.
He really is the Godfather of Tennessee Basketball.

(Note: We would do well to honor Coach Devoe as well)
 
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