A quick Barnes question

coolhorn

coolhorn

2,500+ Posts
BON has a post from back on 03/26 about Rick Barnes allegedly taking a late night tour of facilities at UVA. Anybody know if there's anything to this, and whether or not Barnes may be seriously considering leaving UT this time? By the way, sorry if this has been raised in any other posts here...I didn't see anything.
 
Haven't heard anything about this. I know there were some rampant rumors several years ago about Barnes and the UVA job.

I did hear something about Barnes being in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago regarding the NC State job, but they of course hired Mark Gottfried a couple of days ago.
 
I don't know anything about these rumors...I'd just say Charlottsville is a beautiful place and UVA is a great university. I love Austin but if there was anywhwere I'd think about it'd be UVA
 
I think a lot of other factors could lead to someone favoring a mediocre ACC job. The Big 12 will collapse sooner or later. Football is not always king at half of the ACC institutions. There isn't as much pressure to produce somewhere where they haven't got out of the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament since 1995.
 
IF this is true then Deloss should take a midnight flight to Indianapolis with a 10 year $40M contract for Brad Stevens.
 
I wouldn't want to see Barnes leave, but he has come under a good deal of criticism these last couple of years. He's pretty much his own man, and it wouldn't surprise me if he feels unappreciated here. That, plus he's from ACC country makes me think there might be some legs to the story, especially with Terry taking off for the west coast. I just have to wonder if he's getting tired of coaching at a football-first school and feels like he's hit the ceiling here.
 
Why would Barnes go anywhere else? I think he would be crazy to leave UT. He has clearly stated his goal of being a premier pipeline for players to the NBA. The administration is pleased with this approach, and he has the assistants to make it happen. Sweet deal. Other schools might expect him to put together teams that make serious runs in the NCAA tourney. Why would he leave Austin, the UT sports machine, and all that to go deal with pressure to win conference championships and NCAA success?
 
true this! No one knows if UK truly made overtures to Barnes when they instead hired Billy G. But Barnes is paid well, Austin is not a bad at all place to raise a family, and no-one much pays attention to weak performance in the NCAA tournament despite NBA talent on hand more times than not. Barnes cannot leave Texas of his own volition.
 
Why would Barnes leave? Where else can you have so much in talent, money and facilities with such little expected in return?
 
How does anyone here claim to know what is expected?

The guy has been running a top-10 program for the last decade. What he has not done is win a NCAA championship.
 
With all due respect Bob, Texas's post season ranking over the past 3 years has been an average of 25 (and that is even giving a huge benefit of the doubt of placing Texas #36 in the 2009-2010 final poll, which only ranks the top 25 and 10 others receiving votes). This top 10 nonsense can be tempered a bit given the performance over the last 3 years.

I think the majority of logical fans would agree with ricky that the expectations at Texas as far as the basketball program are much lighter than at other schools. Be competitive, get to the tournament, win 20 games, and we will be happy. I think that is a pretty good assessment of what the expectations are for the Texas basketball program.
 
I'm talking top 10 compared to everyone else. You don't have to be top 10 every year to have a top-10 program. I have numbers I like that put them there. I suppose I could post them.

But I'd rather have you come up with your own 10. The key being, of course, that you have to consider all 10 years.
 
Prior to the last 3 years, I would agree with you. He had the program blowing and going, for sure. Ever since he has started taking on these 1 (or 2) and dones, he has had a bad run of it here lately. I don't think you can argue that we are a top 10 program over the past 3 years. Can you? The list of 10 better programs over the last 3 years would be a pretty easy list to come up with.
 
I have that list, too. Texas is at the bottom of the top 25.

But I don't that's fair to Barnes, either. You've picked two of his three worst results (considering expectations), along with this year, when he jacked expectations and then fell short, when the alternative would have been falling short anyway.

I know, you want to be ticked off. Go ahead. But make that list. I think you're going to find it full of guys that either have a lifetime gig or you would end up paying more than Barnes.
 
Buster, based on the last few years, you'd also be breathing down the necks of Ben Howland and Gary Williams, you would have been on Billy Donovan until this year, and you probably wouldn't be all that excited about Jamie Dixon and Rick Pitino.

Texas had a really good season this year. It ended badly. But it was still the best season since '08, and as I said elsewhere, arguably the fourth best he has had at UT.

But if we're limited to the last week (or three weeks, whatever you end up with), that makes it hard for the coach to look average.
 
I got it. All you care about is the championship.

My point, which you missed, is that while you hammer on Barnes for what he has done the last three years in the tournament, you are ignoring that other coaches also do just as poorly in similar spans.

Haven't I said that these last two years could have been EEs? Even Barnes admitted he had done his worst coaching in 2010.

But he rebounded from that with a season that was, essentially, unexpected. I know I've been over what looks like problems there. But for a team that wasn't expected to do much, they spent basically the last half of the season in the top 10. They had the best defense in the country for a large chunk of it.

This was not a down year. It was a really good one with a bad finish. I'd love for it to be easy to come up with a way to make it better nest year. I just don't think there is an easy way.
 
I don't find what Barnes' teams have done for the past few years disappointing, because the results are exactly what you should expect from a coach (and thus an athletic adm.) that comfortably states that a national championship is not the goal, getting kids into the NBA is the goal.

I am disappointed that a national championship isn't a higher priority than NBA participants. Yes, in that I am disappointed.
 
"We would love to win a national championship, but we're not obsessed with it because we're obsessed with these guys trying to live their NBA dream. What's happened to Kevin Durant, LaMarcus Aldridge, T.J. Ford - I'd give up a national title for all our guys to be able to live their dream." - Rick Barnes in an interview with ESPN Magazine.

I think Rick is pretty clear with this statement, don't you?
 
I think the quote makes perfect sense. If he actually cares about the players, he SHOULD be interested in them living their dreams. His quote says if given a choice between ALL of his players living their dream or a national championship, he says he's pick the former. I'd certainly hope so - if not, then why should any kid want to play for a coach that values his own needs more than theirs? Why should a kid play for a coach that would sacrifice the best interest of the kid for his own national title?
 
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