Rick Barnes is 7-2 in the NCAAT the last three years but

#76
#76
vol94 said:
Yeah, the word basketball wasn’t in Dickey’s vocabulary.

IMO, I don’t think Dickey felt it was possible to win in two sports. The early 90s teams were so bad - horrible to watch. I went to one game as a student.

I think it was 1993 as we beat KY.
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That's not only what Dickey thought, but that thought was pervasive throughout the SEC.
"They were just totally beaten down," Tranghese said. "The coaches felt nobody cared. I'm not certain if all the ADs in that room believed they could win. I found it ludicrous, to be honest with you. I told the ADs, 'This is the most unbelievably nonsensical thing I've ever heard.' I even had one AD tell me that you couldn't win in basketball because the league was so good in football.

"My response: 'Why not? You have the resources, the fan bases, great athletes in your backyards. Use football to your advantage.' Most of all, I told them to quit whining and quit making excuses."
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www.espn.com

How the SEC became the most dominant conference in college basketball

Dwarfed by football no more, the SEC's rise as a men's basketball powerhouse didn't happen overnight.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
 
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#77
#77
05_never_again said:
Honestly, there is a set of people that won't stop chirping until he makes a FF or maybe even wins a national title. Even then, the narrative at that point would become "...but he only made one FF at Tennessee!"
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Your username is complaining about a bad year from the coach who won the only football championship we will almost certainly ever see. Not sure you should be the one to lodge this complaint.
 
#79
#79
05_never_again said:
This is ultimately why most of the critiques Rick gets are kind of ridiculous. I could get on board with some of them if Tennessee had a rich basketball history with multiple national titles or a bunch of trips to the FF/EE.

I think many lose sight of the fact that Tennessee has only been to 2 EEs in our history, and Rick took us to one of them. We've only won one SECT since 1979, and that was from Rick. Of our 11 Sweet 16 appearances, 6 of them have occurred just since 2010. We didn't even make the NCAAT from 1989 to 1998 and then again from 2000 to 2006. We've never won a title or been to a FF. Historically speaking Tennessee is not a particularly accomplished basketball program.
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Bingo! And when he decides to retire the next hire is going to walk in with a Tennessee brand that is relevant in basketball, superb AD, superb support from the administration and the best fan base in the country. All of that will peak some interest in high quality talent.
 
#81
#81
LegionnaireOfTheMiserable said:
I think the difference between the way Pearl’s postseason resume is viewed and the way Rick’s is viewed is twofold. First, Rick had that reputation of choking in March before coming here. Bruce had never been at a big program but already had a Sweet 16 under his belt.

Secondly, Pearl got here and made the tournament all 6 years, with 2 of those years ending in the Sweet 16 and 1 ending in our first Elite 8. Rick’s resume didn’t look as good here because he missed the tournament his first two years, and he only had 4 tournament wins with one trip past the first weekend in his first 7 seasons at UT. At this point now though, his tournament resume at UT is probably better than what Pearl did here and would move into a tier of its own if he can win Friday.
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Can't really count Barnes' 5th year here cause there was no tournament. He went 1-1 in Y3, 2-1 Y4, 0-1 Y6, 1-1 Y7, 2-1 Y8. That is 6 tournament wins in the first 7 seasons where he had an opportunity for a tournament win.
 
#82
#82
whobethis16 said:
Can't really count Barnes' 5th year here cause there was no tournament. He went 1-1 in Y3, 2-1 Y4, 0-1 Y6, 1-1 Y7, 2-1 Y8. That is 6 tournament wins in the first 7 seasons where he had an opportunity for a tournament win.
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You can be semantic about it, but if we had a tournament in 2020, we wouldn’t have made it barring a highly improbable SEC Tournament championship. I’m just explaining why there was a bit of a different perception of Barnes’ postseason abilities here compared to Pearl’s. Rick had 4 tournament wins in 7 years here, while Bruce had 8 in 6 years (really he had 8 in 5 years since that 6th year was one and done). Barnes has made the Sweet 16 three times in a row since then and has won 7 games and counting in years 8, 9, and 10, so the disparity isn’t there any longer.
 
#88
#88
Panthro said:
Final four appearances are so hard to come by. Rick is our best coach ever, and it’s not close. We will absolutely miss him when he’s gone. Justin Gainey might be his replacement.
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Exactly right. Even Elite Eights are hard to come by. You get there and all bets are off. You’re playing the best of the best and anything can happen. It gets harder to win each round. Barnes has made Tennessee very relevant in his time here. Hope we can get to the FF. If not, it’s still been a great season.
 
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#90
#90
VolCalls said:
Yep, 1985. Georgetown had beaten Villanova three times already, although all were close games. It took Villanova shooting 22 for 28 from the field that game - 79% - to finally do it. G-town shot 55% that night. Another crazy stat is there were only 31 rebounds in the entire game since so few shots were missed.
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I remember that game. One of those rare games where the bigger faster stronger team could not, rather were not allowed, to get it going. It took a near perfect game for Villanova to win and they pulled it off. I became a fan of Rollie Massimino after that. I hope I spelled his name right
 
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