Vols Are SEC’s Winningest Program Since 2017

[VolsSince78]

The Vols basketball program has the best winning % & most wins in the SEC from the 2017-2018 season (Barnes 3rd year) to present. Auburn is just behind the Vols, and UK is further back in 3rd.

During the same time period (last six seasons), the Vols have the 8th best winning % among the 76 teams in the Power 6 conferences (includes Big East). Top 10 winning programs:
Kansas
Virginia
Duke
Villanova
Baylor
Arizona
Purdue
VOLS
Auburn
Michigan St

Granted this time period excludes Barnes’ first two challenging seasons here after he inherited the slim roster left from Cuonzo-Tyndall departures over the prior year.

Barnes gets bashed for March results, some deserved. But he does have a slight winning record (6-5) here in the NCAAT, and he broke a 43 yr drought for UT by winning the SEC tournament last March.

Barnes also appears to run a fairly clean program. Certainly don’t want to jinx, but the Vols haven’t been on probation like Auburn, or made strong ass offers like LSU’s former coach, or delivered a murder weapon or been charged with murder like a Bama player & former player.

This has been a good run for Vols Basketball. Not advancing past the Sweet 16 in the random, single elimination NCAAT sucks. But let’s give Barnes a little credit for his success here, and a lot of credit to Grant Williams, Admiral, Bone, Fulky, Keon & Springer (both should have stayed longer), Kennedy Chandler, JJJ, Vescovi, ZZ and a bunch of others.

 

[VolFreakJosh]

Fahr Barnes!

 

[madbamahater]

Fahr Barnes!

Wonder if someone can take what he's built to the next level?

 

[cardvolfan]

Wonder if someone can take what he's built to the next level?

In a random tournament, it’s a crapshoot.

 

[brockytop]

In a random tournament, it’s a crapshoot.

Well, one thing I know is Barnes has been unable to crapshoot his way beyond the Sweet Sixteen since 2008 while head coach at Texas and TN.

 

[Pennheel]

Wonder if someone can take what he's built to the next level?

I think so. He's built stability to a program where it was sorely lacking and brought consistent success to Tennessee. It will be easier to hire a good up and coming coach because he's built that ,and if it's not him before he retires that takes him to the next level, they'll find the right choice to do so going forward. The future is good with Tennessee basketball From what I've watched,there is a lot of quality up and coming coaches out there

 

[VAWL FAN]

The Vols basketball program has the best winning % & most wins in the SEC from the 2017-2018 season (Barnes 3rd year) to present. Auburn is just behind the Vols, and UK is further back in 3rd.

During the same time period (last six seasons), the Vols have the 8th best winning % among the 76 teams in the Power 6 conferences (includes Big East). Top 10 winning programs:
Kansas
Virginia
Duke
Villanova
Baylor
Arizona
Purdue
VOLS
Auburn
Michigan St

Granted this time period excludes Barnes’ first two challenging seasons here after he inherited the slim roster left from Cuonzo-Tyndall departures over the prior year.

Barnes gets bashed for March results, some deserved. But he does have a slight winning record (6-5) here in the NCAAT, and he broke a 43 yr drought for UT by winning the SEC tournament last March.

Barnes also appears to run a fairly clean program. Certainly don’t want to jinx, but the Vols haven’t been on probation like Auburn, or made strong ass offers like LSU’s former coach, or delivered a murder weapon or been charged with murder like a Bama player & former player.

This has been a good run for Vols Basketball. Not advancing past the Sweet 16 in the random, single elimination NCAAT sucks. But let’s give Barnes a little credit for his success here, and a lot of credit to Grant Williams, Admiral, Bone, Fulky, Keon & Springer (both should have stayed longer), Kennedy Chandler, JJJ, Vescovi, ZZ and a bunch of others.

That does put things in perspective for sure.I get just as angry as anyone but Barnes has done some really good things for Vols basketball.

 

[jaguinn5]

The Vols basketball program has the best winning % & most wins in the SEC from the 2017-2018 season (Barnes 3rd year) to present. Auburn is just behind the Vols, and UK is further back in 3rd.

During the same time period (last six seasons), the Vols have the 8th best winning % among the 76 teams in the Power 6 conferences (includes Big East). Top 10 winning programs:
Kansas
Virginia
Duke
Villanova
Baylor
Arizona
Purdue
VOLS
Auburn
Michigan St

Granted this time period excludes Barnes’ first two challenging seasons here after he inherited the slim roster left from Cuonzo-Tyndall departures over the prior year.

Barnes gets bashed for March results, some deserved. But he does have a slight winning record (6-5) here in the NCAAT, and he broke a 43 yr drought for UT by winning the SEC tournament last March.

Barnes also appears to run a fairly clean program. Certainly don’t want to jinx, but the Vols haven’t been on probation like Auburn, or made strong ass offers like LSU’s former coach, or delivered a murder weapon or been charged with murder like a Bama player & former player.

This has been a good run for Vols Basketball. Not advancing past the Sweet 16 in the random, single elimination NCAAT sucks. But let’s give Barnes a little credit for his success here, and a lot of credit to Grant Williams, Admiral, Bone, Fulky, Keon & Springer (both should have stayed longer), Kennedy Chandler, JJJ, Vescovi, ZZ and a bunch of others.

Hes a good coach, but taking out his two worst seasons cheapens these statistics. He has a .655 win record here, which is right at his career win %. Thats really good. Better than most. But thats what you'll get. He will never be there at the end.

 

[jaguinn5]

The Vols basketball program has the best winning % & most wins in the SEC from the 2017-2018 season (Barnes 3rd year) to present. Auburn is just behind the Vols, and UK is further back in 3rd.

During the same time period (last six seasons), the Vols have the 8th best winning % among the 76 teams in the Power 6 conferences (includes Big East). Top 10 winning programs:
Kansas
Virginia
Duke
Villanova
Baylor
Arizona
Purdue
VOLS
Auburn
Michigan St

Granted this time period excludes Barnes’ first two challenging seasons here after he inherited the slim roster left from Cuonzo-Tyndall departures over the prior year.

Barnes gets bashed for March results, some deserved. But he does have a slight winning record (6-5) here in the NCAAT, and he broke a 43 yr drought for UT by winning the SEC tournament last March.

Barnes also appears to run a fairly clean program. Certainly don’t want to jinx, but the Vols haven’t been on probation like Auburn, or made strong ass offers like LSU’s former coach, or delivered a murder weapon or been charged with murder like a Bama player & former player.

This has been a good run for Vols Basketball. Not advancing past the Sweet 16 in the random, single elimination NCAAT sucks. But let’s give Barnes a little credit for his success here, and a lot of credit to Grant Williams, Admiral, Bone, Fulky, Keon & Springer (both should have stayed longer), Kennedy Chandler, JJJ, Vescovi, ZZ and a bunch of others.

If you look during Barne's entire tenure here (8 seasons) we come in at #44. The only way your statistics paint an accurate picture is if you took the top 6 of the last 8 years for every program. I'm not going to do the math on that. Feel free.

 

[VolsSince78]

If you look during Barne's entire tenure here (8 seasons) we come in at #44. The only way your statistics paint an accurate picture is if you took the top 6 of the last 8 years for every program. I'm not going to do the math on that. Feel free.

No thanks. What the Vols did 7 or 8 years ago is basically irrelevant IMO, because the Vols won’t return to that level under Barnes. What the Vols have done in the most recent 6 yrs is more relevant data- #1 in the SEC and #8 amongst the big conferences.
PS. And it’s an apples to apples comparison of where the Vols stand vs other teams.. just using an arbitrary time frame of 6 seasons.

 

[Vol49er]

If you look during Barne's entire tenure here (8 seasons) we come in at #44. The only way your statistics paint an accurate picture is if you took the top 6 of the last 8 years for every program. I'm not going to do the math on that. Feel free.

That’s not remotely true. Measuring the last six years is a constant (albeit arbitrary) measurement. The same is true if you measure the last eight for each program. Selecting six of the best eight and measuring that would be an absurd way to do it.

 

[zaqhhh]

I will absolutely admit he is a great regular season coach but please shut up with this “Tournament is a crapshoot” garbage.

Barnes CANT coach in March period, end of story.

Let’s look at his total NCAA Tourney history:

Underperformed Seed Line: 14
Performed at Seed Line: 12
Overperformed Seed Line: 1

(Note is impossible to underperform seed line any year seeded below 8 which makes numbers above even worse!)

Lost to 9 or lower Seed: 11 Times (4 in 5 postseasons at UT)

Beat a seed at least 3 lines better: 1 time
Lost to a seed at least 3 lines worse: 8 times

Games decided by 8 or less in NCAAT:
11-21


I want to iterate that the numbers above aren’t just bad, they are almost unbelievably atrocious.

You can say “well at least he makes the tourney every year.” Which is a half valid point but when you have nearly 30 postseason appearances and absolutely nothing to show for it, it is a hard argument to make that a team shouldn’t abandon Barnes when they reach his ceiling.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

I will absolutely admit he is a great regular season coach but please shut up with this “Tournament is a crapshoot” garbage.

Barnes CANT coach in March period, end of story.

Let’s look at his total NCAA Tourney history:

Underperformed Seed Line: 14
Performed at Seed Line: 12
Overperformed Seed Line: 1

(Note is impossible to underperform seed line any year seeded below 8 which makes numbers above even worse!)

Lost to 9 or lower Seed: 11 Times (4 in 5 postseasons at UT)

Beat a seed at least 3 lines better: 1 time
Lost to a seed at least 3 lines worse: 8 times

Games decided by 8 or less in NCAAT:
11-21


I want to iterate that the numbers above aren’t just bad, they are almost unbelievably atrocious.

You can say “well at least he makes the tourney every year.” Which is a half valid point but when you have nearly 30 postseason appearances and absolutely nothing to show for it, it is a hard argument to make that a team shouldn’t abandon Barnes when they reach his ceiling.

Or you can eliminate most of your argument by saying that CRB gets his teams to win a lot of regular season games therefore gets a higher seed than the talent deserves. Michigan and Oregon State (and Cuonzo) did the exact opposite. They had teams that lost a ton of games that they shouldn’t have and earned double digit seeds.

By crap shoot, it is very much like luck (or the lack thereof).

“30 postseason appearances and absolutely nothing to show for it”? Other than a Final Four and 3 Elite Eights. And 8x Sweet 16s. One fewer than TN has in its entire history.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

BTW, only 3 losing seasons out of 36. And none of the 5 programs that CRB took over was an established winning program. 2 had losing records tge year before, one was 0.500 and the two others were 2 games over 0.500.

And 6x conference championships for non-blue bloods in leagues full of blue bloods.

5x high major conference coach of the year as well as a couple of national coach of the year awards.

 

[zaqhhh]

Projected results by seed:
R64: 4
R32: 12
S16: 7
E8: 3
F4: 1

Barnes Actual Result by seed:
R64: 9
R32: 7
S16: 8
E8: 2
F4: 1

And these results are even worse obviously when considering just the UT tenure

 

[zaqhhh]

BTW, only 3 losing seasons out of 36. And none of the 5 programs that CRB took over was an established winning program. 2 had losing records tge year before, one was 0.500 and the two others were 2 games over 0.500.

And 6x conference championships for non-blue bloods in leagues full of blue bloods.

5x high major conference coach of the year as well as a couple of national coach of the year awards.

And no one is arguing he is a bad coach. No one is even arguing he isn’t a good coach. Or even a great regular season coach.

But time and time again he fails in March at a rate that is likely the worst or close to it of any coach with 10 or more appearances with a P5 school.

And if the above is true, the question is what is acceptable in the long run?

That should be the focus of any debate.

And it’s a legitimate question to ask if we could find better, but I think at some point we have to acknowledge Barnes can’t do much more (while thanking him for what he has done)

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

Projected results by seed:
R64: 4
R32: 12
S16: 7
E8: 3
F4: 1

Barnes Actual Result by seed:
R64: 9
R32: 7
S16: 8
E8: 2
F4: 1

And these results are even worse obviously when considering just the UT tenure

I don’t judge coaches by how a bunch of university administrators “seed” teams. They do it for TV ratings, to protect their big ratings/big TV ratings teams, and don’t do any favors for the top seeds that aren’t blue bloods. Plus, the games are de facto home games for the worse seeds.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

And no one is arguing he is a bad coach. No one is even arguing he isn’t a good coach. Or even a great regular season coach.

But time and time again he fails in March at a rate that is likely the worst or close to it of any coach with 10 or more appearances with a P5 school.

And if the above is true, the question is what is acceptable in the long run?

That should be the focus of any debate.

And it’s a legitimate question to ask if we could find better, but I think at some point we have to acknowledge Barnes can’t do much more.

Only eight teams had a more successful 2023 NCAAT than CRB had.

 

[zaqhhh]

I don’t judge coaches by how a bunch of university administrators “seeda” teams. They do it for TV ratings, to protect their big ratings/big TV ratings teams, and don’t do any favors for the top seeds that aren’t blue bloods. Plus, the games are de facto home games for the worse seeds.

So what do you judge him by in March?

This is where I think any argument falls apart, the only thing you can say is “well the committee is just unfair (and has been to him at UT, other UT, Clemson, and Providence)”

That is just nonsensical when we have 27 appearances to extrapolate data from.

 

[zaqhhh]

Only eight teams had a more successful 2023 NCAAT than CRB had.

This season was one of the rare seasons he met his seed line expectations. This is actually a “win” for Barnes relative to normal results.

I just gave you 27 seasons worth of data though.

 

[Thunder Good-Oil]

So what do you judge him by in March?

This is where I think any argument falls apart, the only thing you can say is “well the committee is just unfair (and has been to him at UT, other UT, Clemson, and Providence)”

That is just nonsensical when we have 27 appearances to extrapolate data from.

Conference tournaments are in March. Barnes went to 3 SECT finals in 4 years.

Barnes wins half of his NCAAT games. Only 16 teams do more in any single year.

8 seasons (7 with NCAATs) is a tiny sample size at TN. With worse than average injuries to starters. How many more wins are there with Fulkerson and Alexander available?

 

[EZE]

Wonder if someone can take what he's built to the next level?

I don’t know. Given the history of the program, it is much more likely that it would go more than one level in the other direction.

 

[JMSqb11]

The Vols basketball program has the best winning % & most wins in the SEC from the 2017-2018 season (Barnes 3rd year) to present. Auburn is just behind the Vols, and UK is further back in 3rd.

During the same time period (last six seasons), the Vols have the 8th best winning % among the 76 teams in the Power 6 conferences (includes Big East). Top 10 winning programs:
Kansas
Virginia
Duke
Villanova
Baylor
Arizona
Purdue
VOLS
Auburn
Michigan St

Granted this time period excludes Barnes’ first two challenging seasons here after he inherited the slim roster left from Cuonzo-Tyndall departures over the prior year.

Barnes gets bashed for March results, some deserved. But he does have a slight winning record (6-5) here in the NCAAT, and he broke a 43 yr drought for UT by winning the SEC tournament last March.

Barnes also appears to run a fairly clean program. Certainly don’t want to jinx, but the Vols haven’t been on probation like Auburn, or made strong ass offers like LSU’s former coach, or delivered a murder weapon or been charged with murder like a Bama player & former player.

This has been a good run for Vols Basketball. Not advancing past the Sweet 16 in the random, single elimination NCAAT sucks. But let’s give Barnes a little credit for his success here, and a lot of credit to Grant Williams, Admiral, Bone, Fulky, Keon & Springer (both should have stayed longer), Kennedy Chandler, JJJ, Vescovi, ZZ and a bunch of others.

Barnes has easily rebuilt the program he inherited from two bozo coaches who tanked it in 4 short years.

Everyone knew Barnes’ March record when we hired him. At the time, he was light years the best choice to hire. You mean our program being on death’s door could possibly be in running to hire Barnes and his record of being annual tourney team and running clean program? Hell yes.

I’ll be honest, Barnes has easily exceeded expectations for me. I viewed him taking this job as a “running out the clock” on his career. The fact we could get 9-10 years out of him is such a bonus. While Barnes hasn’t gotten the NCAAT job done, he has built this program to a point where when he leaves, we can actually make a hire that is in a position to elevate the program, not rebuild….

 

[jaguinn5]

No thanks. What the Vols did 7 or 8 years ago is basically irrelevant IMO, because the Vols won’t return to that level under Barnes. What the Vols have done in the most recent 6 yrs is more relevant data- #1 in the SEC and #8 amongst the big conferences.
PS. And it’s an apples to apples comparison of where the Vols stand vs other teams.. just using an arbitrary time frame of 6 seasons.

Its not arbitrary. If you want to use statistics to measure his success at Tennessee, you can't cherry pick his best years. You have to look at the whole picture. Also, I wouldn't be so confident that he won't have another down year. He has had down years everywhere he has coached.

 

[jaguinn5]

That’s not remotely true. Measuring the last six years is a constant (albeit arbitrary) measurement. The same is true if you measure the last eight for each program. Selecting six of the best eight and measuring that would be an absurd way to do it.

My point is that if you want to use statistics to make the point that Barnes has outperformed other programs during his tenure at TN, you need to use his entire tenure and not eliminate his first two seasons. The more data you include the more accurate your data will be. The more data you eliminate, the weaker your data will be.