A Reluctant Criticism of Barnes

Making the tournament is a crap goal.

The goal should be to reach potential every year. If the potential is making the tournament, then fine. If the team is a potential Final Four team and it craps the bed in the tournament, then it is a disappointing season.

These arbitrary goals are stupid. The program six years ago is different than the one today. It should reflect this. Saying "Well, historically, we have been such and such" is a foolish guideline. I'm not going to base success today on a failure of a program decades ago. That sort of mentality simply doesn't register for me.
This team didn't have a SEC champion or final four roster
 
What are the schools? How much is their salary? What is their basketball history? What are their fanbase’s expectations? What are the previous five years? Has Coach A suffered injuries in the tournament? Did Coach B have a star one and done that led them to a tourney one year and they barely got in? How bad were the rosters when they took over? Did they overachieve in the regular season? How’d they do in the conference tourneys?
Lmao, funny all these circumstances and excuses yet those things don’t generally matter at Tennessee. Same power 5 conference, same salary...go ahead and answer?
 
Or, 22/45, depending how you want to look at it. Hell, take out the really bad coaches in Houston and Peterson, and it's even better. Barnes is 3 out of 6, he wasn't making it last year.

Last year was a down year. This was a disappointing year.
Nobody made the dance last year and we were in bubble talk, he’s 3/5, stop trying to make it something it’s not.
 
Making the tournament is a crap goal.

The goal should be to reach potential every year. If the potential is making the tournament, then fine. If the team is a potential Final Four team and it craps the bed in the tournament, then it is a disappointing season.

These arbitrary goals are stupid. The program six years ago is different than the one today. It should reflect this. Saying "Well, historically, we have been such and such" is a foolish guideline. I'm not going to base success today on a failure of a program decades ago. That sort of mentality simply doesn't register for me.
So Barnes would be smart to hedge his bets and not have a stacked team? Therefore less likely to “underachieve”? Rather just have expectations at maybe making the dance and when he does each year people are ecstatic???
 
Except that Barnes recruited Turner and Alexander himself, not Tyndal.

And Kevin Punter was juco and not a big time recruit and Hubbs player his best under Barnes. Other than that..

Punter was a Juco All-American scoring machine. He was pretty damn good.
 

Probably Coach A but I reserved the right to change my mind once I know the schools because I understand that context actually matters

What about this

Coach A: 4/4 tourneys...64% conference...71.2% overall...1x S16...1x R32...4x 20 win seasons

Coach B: 3/5 tourneys...57% conference...65.3% overall...1x S16...2x 20 win seasons...
 
Punter was a Juco All-American scoring machine. He was pretty damn good.

There is a reason why kids go juco these days in basketball. He was a 3 Star who wanted to go to Mizzou with Haith. But his other offers were midmajor. He ended up being good for us because it was all we had to score. He was basically the best player Barnes inherited, so that tells you what he had.
 
So Barnes would be smart to hedge his bets and not have a stacked team? Therefore less likely to “underachieve”? Rather just have expectations at maybe making the dance and when he does each year people are ecstatic???

Is there a possible more obtuse way to answer this question? I would say "hedging his bets" and creating an inferior team would demonstrate he wasn't reaching expectations.
 
Probably Coach A but I reserved the right to change my mind once I know the schools because I understand that context actually matters

What about this

Coach A: 4/4 tourneys...64% conference...71.2% overall...1x S16...1x R32...4x 20 win seasons

Coach B: 3/5 tourneys...57% conference...65.3% overall...1x S16...2x 20 win seasons...

What was year 5 for A?

What were other 2NCAAT results for each?
 
Again, you have to take into account that Buzz Peterson was terrible. There no way in hell he should have gone 14-17 with that roster. None. Calling what he inherited a dumpster fire isn't honest either. You can't just wave away Watson and Lofton.

He inherited two guards, one highly skilled who he made much better (CJ went from 11ppg to near 16 in one season) and one who he really developed into an all-time great in Lofton. Everyone else on that team was considered a bust at that point in their career. Major Wingate was the #1 prospect in the nation at one point, he was ranked ahead of LeBron James. By his senior year of high school he was down to 60th on Rivals and by his junior year at Tennessee even that seemed extremely overranked. The argument that a walk-on who averaged one point a game was part of his loaded roster he inherited and not that he did an amazing job developing him is an all time bad take from some on here. Pearl worked a miracle his first year.
 

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