Irrational Rick Barnes takes (merged)

[Rocky Top Raby]

Bingo!

Yeah, why strive for something better when we can sit here in mediocrity forever?

 

[Rocky Top Raby]

Barnes is doing exactly what he is getting paid to do. Get to the tourney and make a run. We are not Kentucky 8 titles, UCLA 12 titles, Duke 4-5 titles, UNC 4-5 titles, Arizona, UCONN ,Kansas 2-3 titles, Villanova, Indiana, you get the point. I don’t expect to win tourney. We’re a football first university always will be and I’m cool with that. My advice is pick a blue blood of college basketball and pull for them. That’s what I do. Pouring my heart into football I’m all in , basketball not so much.

We pay top 5 in salary and have facilities that rival almost anyone's. We may not have the trophies but when you pay top dollar it's fair to expect top results. You pretty much made the biggest case for why Barnes isn't worth it.

 

[ShowSomePride]

What about Sampson? A bit older but his results are Houston are undeniable.

 

[Sudden Impact]

Yeah, why strive for something better when we can sit here in mediocrity forever?

Again define mediocrity? Apply the definition of mediocrity to CRB and his teams. Mediocre teams do not make the tournament. Mediocre teams do not win Conference Championships. Mediocre Teams do not get into the NCAA tournament 5 consecutive years. Mediocre teams do not win 25+ games a year.
If you apply this standard to the FF teams this year then we have 4 Mediocre Teams in the final 4. You will say ..... but, but, but, but, and I say figure out another way to "can" it or move on or simply drop this approach. You are a Mediocre Poster.

 

[VolFreakJosh]

Well losing to teams ranked lower than you every single year in the tournament is the sign of a great coach right?

Right, Barnes is the only one in this tournament that lost to lower seeds….

I’m convinced you don’t even watch sports, let alone read a dictionary considering you don’t even know what “mediocrity” actually means.

 

[berryvol]

Yeah because 4 coaches who are actively retired and done with their careers are just as much as likely to go back to coaching as 3 active coaches and 1 coach who has 1 season away from the game.

You may have a better chance of pulling John Wooden from the grave than you would Jay Wright to coach here.

 

[VOLnMiami]

Yeah, why strive for something better when we can sit here in mediocrity forever?

Who are you gonna get thats better?...Believe me, I have been down this road before...go for it...Name your top 5 and I'll tell you the god honest truth that we won't get them...Go ahead...We are lucky to have coach Barnes regardless of what you think.

 

[Sudden Impact]

Yeah, why strive for something better when we can sit here in mediocrity forever?

According to your definition of Mediocrity, Tennessee has had nothing but mediocre coaches in their entire history. We have mediocre fans in some cases but not coaches.

 

[VolArmy74]

If we go by school and not conference, is Ole Miss a mid-major in BB? Vanderbilt and Georgia?

To me, mid-major vs major = does your conference have a massive football based contract that makes it possible to have high level facilities for all sports. That said, winning in basketball doesn't require being a high major. It just requires excellent coaches. In football you have to have high level coaches and big money to consistently win.

 

[EasternVol]

Have those 3 schools been elevated from a mid major conference due to a bigger conference existence being threatened in recent history?

Doesn't matter. Are they high major or mid-major? I'd say they're high major per their conference. Same with Creighton, who's been in the Big East since 2013.

 

[Vols410]

To me, mid-major vs major = does your conference have a massive football based contract that makes it possible to have high level facilities for all sports. That said, winning in basketball doesn't require being a high major. It just requires excellent coaches. In football you have to have high level coaches and big money to consistently win.

Interestingly enough, despite the lack of football contracts, the Big East puts a ton of money into their basketball programs. I wouldn't consider them mid-major at all in basketball. Marquette/Nova/Georgetown/UConn would all rank 2nd in the SEC in spending. Creighton is ahead of LSU/MSST in basketball spending.

 

[VolArmy74]

Interestingly enough, despite the lack of football contracts, the Big East puts a ton of money into their basketball programs. I wouldn't consider them mid-major at all in basketball. Marquette/Nova/Georgetown/UConn would all rank 2nd in the SEC in spending. Creighton is ahead of LSU/MSST in basketball spending.

I'm not sure what those numbers apply to, but it's clearly not including basketball coaching salary in the equation. We pay Barnes more than the total expenditure they are claiming for our total spending. I saw another list from 2021 that has us at 25th with near 11 million per year spent. Villanova, GT and Providence are in the top 25 on it, no other BE schools, including UConn, made the top 25.

The new future will only separate the SEC/B10 from everyone else in revenue and ability to spend on coaches and facilities.

 

[Vols410]

I'm not sure what those numbers apply to, but it's clearly not including basketball coaching salary in the equation. We pay Barnes more than the total expenditure they are claiming for our total spending. I saw another list from 2021 that has us at 25th with near 11 million per year spent. Villanova, GT and Providence are in the top 25 on it, no other BE schools, including UConn, made the top 25.

The new future will only separate the SEC/B10 from everyone else in revenue and ability to spend on coaches and facilities.

Whoops. I have a ton of NCAA football/basketball analytics I've run for years. I've been sourcing reported total expenses/revenues that date back to 2003 for both sports and use them to project total expenses to measure a school's overall commitment to each sport, helping me to grade coaches appropriately. They do include coaching salaries. Sometimes I get my metrics confused.

The numbers you saw were a scaled version I've used in the past to make modelling/visualizing easier. Just replaced them with the actual weighted averages.

If you want just the most recent year, available (here), 6 Big East programs are in the top 25 in total men's basketball expenses, including UConn (2), Nova (5), and Xavier (8) in the top 10.

 

[VolArmy74]

Whoops. I have a ton of NCAA football/basketball analytics I've run for years. I've been sourcing reported total expenses/revenues that date back to 2003 for both sports and use them to project total expenses to measure a school's overall commitment to each sport, helping me to grade coaches appropriately. They do include coaching salaries. Sometimes I get my metrics confused.

The numbers you saw were a scaled version I've used in the past to make modelling/visualizing easier. Just replaced them with the actual weighted averages.

If you want just the most recent year, available (here), 6 Big East programs are in the top 25 in total men's basketball expenses, including UConn (2), Nova (5), and Xavier (8) in the top 10.

View attachment 543563

UConn had a massive bump because they had to pay Kevin Ollie 13 million dollars after losing in court. Their athletic department is in shambles and they lost 53 million dollars in 2022. Their path forward is fraught with peril to say the least and the institution said they were slashing pay outs to sports to 33 million dollars over the current fiscal year. The year before paying Ollie they weren't in the top 25.

 

[Vols410]

UConn had a massive bump because they had to pay Kevin Ollie 13 million dollars after losing in court. Their athletic department is in shambles and they lost 53 million dollars in 2022. Their path forward is fraught with peril to say the least and the institution said they were slashing pay outs to sports to 33 million dollars over the current fiscal year. The year before paying Ollie they weren't in the top 25.

Yup. Outliers like that are why I typically use the weighted average which brings them out of the top 10.

They’ve been on the top 25 of total NCAAM expenses 17 of the last 20 years.

 

[VolArmy74]

Yup. Things like that are why I typically use the weighted average which brings them out of the top 10.

They’ve been on the top 25 of total NCAAM expenses 17 of the last 20 years.

They've been bleeding money during that time too. Their president recently said they were just going to have to learn to make due with less money for sports going forward. Which goes back to my point, they don't have big football money so are a mid-major type program and it will only get worse going forward. Even Kansas fans are worried they're going to be a mid-major in the future.

But you can be very successful in basketball as a mid-major as long as you have a great coach. We see that every year with Gonzaga and a few others.

 

[Vols410]

They've been bleeding money during that time too. Their president recently said they were just going to have to learn to make due with less money for sports going forward. Which goes back to my point, they don't have big football money so are a mid-major type program and it will only get worse going forward. Even Kansas fans are worried they're going to be a mid-major in the future.

But you can be very successful in basketball as a mid-major as long as you have a great coach. We see that every year with Gonzaga and a few others.

Just pointing out that, over the course of the past 20 years, the Big East has spent like a major conference, not remotely mid-major, and that’s true across the board in the conference.

 

[VolArmy74]

Just pointing out that, over the course of the past 20 years, the Big East has spent like a major conference, not remotely mid-major, and that’s true across the board in the conference.

The second half of that period has seen that conference lose it's football teams and fall into relative money obscurity. Their path forward, financially, isn't supportive of being a high major conference.

 

[Vols410]

The second half of that period has seen that conference lose it's football teams and fall into relative money obscurity. Their path forward, financially, isn't supportive of being a high major conference.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what that looks like going forward. It certainly hasn't impacted their spending to this point, but maybe that can be expected to be going down in the next few years. On the other hand, they brought in the second most basketball revenue among all conferences in 2021, behind only the Big Ten. Maybe that's enough to keep them operating like the major conference they've been to this point.

 

[Rocky Top Raby]

The farther in the tournament you go, the lack of a point guard, ZZ, becomes magnified and harder to overcome. That's not on coaching , that is just a very bad break at a bad time. Tough for any team to overcome.

So what about the years where his team was healthy? Y'all act like there isn't his whole career to base the fact he's mediocre as ****.

 

[SGMVols]

Also, what job opening has been open over the the last 5-10 years where a clear upgrade in some form or fashion has been presented to Drew aka Blue Blood or massive pay day?

He wasn’t taking the UCLA job because of conference issues… Duke and UNC were both going in house. Cal and Self are basically coaching until they say they are done….

Simply put, there has not been one school in the last 5-8 seasons that have come along after Drew where it isn’t a rebuild and said school is basically offering top 5 money…. If you think it’s impossible that Drew wouldn’t listen to a “job pitch”, you would make a horrible agent. He gets paid either way. One route is Baylor forks over cash or we get our guy. Literally zero risk.

Baylor has plenty of money. They would pay him anything anyone else would.

 

[SGMVols]

We pay top 5 in salary and have facilities that rival almost anyone's. We may not have the trophies but when you pay top dollar it's fair to expect top results. You pretty much made the biggest case for why Barnes isn't worth it.

I do not think we will pay top 5 money to the next coach. We only gave Barnes that because a better job was about to do that and we didn’t want to lose him. It’s never been the UT way to spend big up front. We hire cheap initially and THEN pay you big if you succeed. It’s what we did with Josh Heupel and Tony Vitello too.

 

[JMSqb11]

Baylor has plenty of money. They would pay him anything anyone else would.

Yet they haven’t…. Why is that? Because no one has come along throwing top 5 money at him that wasn’t a complete rebuild

 

[JMSqb11]

You may have a better chance of pulling John Wooden from the grave than you would Jay Wright to coach here.

That is irrelevant. If Barnes up and retired, you would be a dumbass AD if you didn’t call Jay Wright and offer him the same amount of money, if not more, to see what he says…. No one is saying Jay Wright is coming…. But you’re a moronic AD if you don’t call him at all.

 

[SGMVols]

Yet they haven’t…. Why is that? Because no one has come along throwing top 5 money at him that wasn’t a complete rebuild

We wouldn’t have given Barnes top 5 money either had UCLA not threatened to.