Rick Barnes: Year One

#26
#26
Wow I'm glad some of you aren't my boss. Considering Barnes inherited a team with no true pg or post presence, I'm not sure anyone could have expected much better than what this team accomplished. I don't think any coach in the country could have done any better. With that said, considering the resources and fan base the Vols have, we should never, and I mean NEVER accept a losing season. I think Coach Barnes is an excellent coach and will do great things here if fans give him time. Just like Butch Jones, he is going to have to rebuild this program " brick by brick". Not sure how anybody can judge him on recruiting yet since we haven't seen any of his recruits play. My grade is a B-.
 
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#27
#27
zjcvols said:
Barnes repeatedly said we were going to push the tempo and take a bunch of three's. If you don't remember that, it's not my fault you don't follow the team that much.

Tennessee had it's worse season in 19 years. I understand the situation, but Tyndall was in just as bad as a spot and was able to finish at .500 and I didn't even think he did a great job. Tennessee is too good of a program to be having 15-19 seasons.
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Tyndall had an NBA guy on his roster.
 
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#28
#28
zjcvols said:
Barnes repeatedly said we were going to push the tempo and take a bunch of three's. If you don't remember that, it's not my fault you don't follow the team that much.

Tennessee had it's worse season in 19 years. I understand the situation, but Tyndall was in just as bad as a spot and was able to finish at .500 and I didn't even think he did a great job. Tennessee is too good of a program to be having 15-19 seasons.
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Tyndall had an NBA player on his roster. No comparison in talent vs. this year's team.
 
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#29
#29
zjcvols said:
Barnes repeatedly said we were going to push the tempo and take a bunch of three's. If you don't remember that, it's not my fault you don't follow the team that much.

Tennessee had it's worse season in 19 years. I understand the situation, but Tyndall was in just as bad as a spot and was able to finish at .500 and I didn't even think he did a great job. Tennessee is too good of a program to be having 15-19 seasons.
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Punter did push the ball. It's not a lie to say that he wants to push the ball and take a lot of threes. If the other team is defending it, then you don't force threes. Deviating from a preferred philosophy isn't being a liar.

I don't remember Barnes saying that he'd not make any adjustments. I don't remember him saying that Hubbs will have mid-season surgery, McGhee would quit mid-season, Kasongo wouldn't develop, and that Punter would miss the last three weeks of the season.
 
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#30
#30
1985Vols said:
Tyndall had an NBA player on his roster. No comparison in talent vs. this year's team.
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While that's true, nobody thought Josh could be a legitimate NBA draft pick 18 months ago, just like nobody thought Kevin Punter could average 20 something points.
 
#32
#32
good write up. However, I'll say C+/B-. Predicted finish 13, and finished 12. Hamstrung roster that did have key injuries and no depth to speak of. Expectations not met, but did have wins against 4 of top 5 finishing programs (SC, VAN, KY, LSU), drilled FL, and totally blasted Auburn 2x. Jury out, but pleased with these results, when there weren't much expectations. Got people's attn with some of the wins, and think something to build on.
 
#33
#33
zjcvols said:
While that's true, nobody thought Josh could be a legitimate NBA draft pick 18 months ago, just like nobody thought Kevin Punter could average 20 something points.
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That doesn't really matter. Bottom line Tyndall had a talented player on his roster that is actually having a pretty good rookie season in the NBA and Barnes didn't
 
#34
#34
zjcvols said:
Barnes repeatedly said we were going to push the tempo and take a bunch of three's. If you don't remember that, it's not my fault you don't follow the team that much.

Tennessee had it's worse season in 19 years. I understand the situation, but Tyndall was in just as bad as a spot and was able to finish at .500 and I didn't even think he did a great job. Tennessee is too good of a program to be having 15-19 seasons.
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People that disagree with your point about Barnes don't follow the team much? I'm not sure I saw the exact quote from your link. It was a comment he made in October, right?

Your OP is well thought out and this is a great topic.

I think many of your points are fair, but it seems a bit disingenuous to call the coach a liar because a month before the team ever played a game he said he wanted to push tempo.

What is it about tempo that you're hung up on exactly? You thought we should have taken more threes?

Am I looking at the stats wrong (very possible) or did we not take the second-most three point attempts of anyone in the conference?
 
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#36
#36
Freak said:
People that disagree with your point about Barnes don't follow the team much? I'm not sure I saw the exact quote from your link. It was a comment he made in October, right?

I think many of your points are fair, but it seems a bit disingenuous to call the coach a liar because a month before the team ever played a game he said he wanted to push tempo.

What is it about tempo that you're hung up on exactly? You thought we should have taken more threes?

Am I looking at the stats wrong (very possible) or did we not take the second-most three point attempts of anyone in the conference?
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Based on our 3 point % why would anybody want us to shoot more 3's? Maybe Barnes realized once we started playing that he had to change his original plan.
 
#37
#37
zjcvols said:
I really struggled because I understand that Barnes didn't have a lot to work with but having the worst season in nineteen years at Tennessee just really sticks in my craw.
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Goes along with the talent. It was the least talented team since I have really followed, and that is about 20 years.
 
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#38
#38
This team exceeded my expectations in some ways, but you can't look past some of the really bad losses. Like many, I was encouraged by the way the team fought in the SEC Tournament and it gives me some hope for next year.
 
#39
#39
1985Vols said:
Based on our 3 point % why would anybody want us to shoot more 3's? Maybe Barnes realized once we started playing that he had to change his original plan.
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Tennessee was 12th in the SEC in 3-point FG percentage.

To be honest, I thought we probably relied on the three-point shot too much at times. JMO.
 
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#40
#40
Freak said:
People that disagree with your point about Barnes don't follow the team much? I'm not sure I saw the exact quote from your link. It was a comment he made in October, right?

Your OP is well thought out and this is a great topic.

I think many of your points are fair, but it seems a bit disingenuous to call the coach a liar because a month before the team ever played a game he said he wanted to push tempo.

What is it about tempo that you're hung up on exactly? You thought we should have taken more threes?

Am I looking at the stats wrong (very possible) or did we not take the second-most three point attempts of anyone in the conference?
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Barnes repeatedly made comments about how fast we were going to play and how many three's we were going to take. There was even a thread about it on the forum and I expressed my doubts that would happen. And it wasn't like he's Bruce Pearl. It was more of a question of why Barnes would tell us one thing when his past clearly says otherwise, and he didn't follow through on what he told us in preseason where it seemed like he was going through a philosophy change.

And with this team, they should have really pushed the pace as fast as possible. I'm not so hung up on the three's (though I'm really curious why you talk about shooting a lot of three's then tell Hubbs and Reese not to shoot them)
 
#41
#41
zjcvols said:
Barnes repeatedly made comments about how fast we were going to play and how many three's we were going to take. There was even a thread about it on the forum and I expressed my doubts that would happen. And it wasn't like he's Bruce Pearl. It was more of a question of why Barnes would tell us one thing when his past clearly says otherwise, and he didn't follow through on what he told us in preseason where it seemed like he was going through a philosophy change.

And with this team, they should have really pushed the pace as fast as possible. I'm not so hung up on the three's (though I'm really curious why you talk about shooting a lot of three's then tell Hubbs and Reese not to shoot them)
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You probably just dreamed about the media talking about the 7 second clock thru most of the Ooc.
 
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#42
#42
VolFreakJosh said:
Overall it wasn't a fantastic hire but it was a safe hire for the time being. Give him a few more years to recruit better players for his system and stabilize the program. If we don't see improvement, then Barnes needs to go.
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I agree. I think that number one on Hart's list was "stabilize the program". That goal was met. Let's judge Barnes after he has recruited his kind of guys.
 
#43
#43
Freak said:
Tennessee was 12th in the SEC in 3-point FG percentage.

To be honest, I thought we probably relied on the three-point shot too much at times. JMO.
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Exactly, we lost several games because we relied on 3's abs would shoot like 20% or worse.
 
#44
#44
You're a window licking mouth breather if you thought this team was going to be playing late in March.

You are approaching "barley responsive to heat and light" levels of intelligence if you think Barnes was a bad hire. The team had no real point guard at the start of the year, no size, very little speed, no consistent outside shooter, and no big man. Once they developed their identity they lost their leading scorer to a season ending injury.

There isn't a player on this roster today who will play basketball of any significance after College....and you want to blame a first year coach for that.

Seriously....eat some more paint chips.....
 
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#45
#45
Freak said:
People that disagree with your point about Barnes don't follow the team much? I'm not sure I saw the exact quote from your link. It was a comment he made in October, right?

Your OP is well thought out and this is a great topic.

I think many of your points are fair, but it seems a bit disingenuous to call the coach a liar because a month before the team ever played a game he said he wanted to push tempo.

What is it about tempo that you're hung up on exactly? You thought we should have taken more threes?

Am I looking at the stats wrong (very possible) or did we not take the second-most three point attempts of anyone in the conference?
Click to expand...

Not because of who you are to this board, however, I agree 100%. Glad the thread was initiated and I understand other viewpoints. This one was an unjustified hatchet job on CRB.
 
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#46
#46
why is everyone down on barnes recruiting? so far his classes are better than the last two coaches. and how can you give all the credit with SP and AS to tyndall when barnes is the one to coach them?
 
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#47
#47
Kingdooley said:
why is everyone down on barnes recruiting? so far his classes are better than the last two coaches. and how can you give all the credit with SP and AS to tyndall when barnes is the one to coach them?
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Stop confusing the issue with facts. The posters doing that have an agenda which has continued most of the season.
 
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#48
#48
I agree for the most part, but i feel like I shouldn't be this optimistic about next season and the one after to only give him a D+. But either way I don't think this says much about him to be honest, I think he did what he could with what he had. Maybe he had so much going on, that he just felt too overwhelmed to try and make half-time adjustments because he had to just focus on keeping his players heads in the game.
 
#49
#49
Next seasons team will and should be strong in the backcourt with Turner, Mostella, Phillips, Parker, Bone & Johnson. My concern is how well the Bigs will progress. Our inside game has to improve or we'll be seeing a similar record again.
 
#50
#50
SlyStone said:
Next seasons team will and should be strong in the backcourt with Turner, Mostella, Phillips, Parker, Bone & Johnson. My concern is how well the Bigs will progress. Our inside game has to improve or we'll be seeing a similar record again.
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We are going to miss Moore and Reese rebounding for sure.
 
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