The issue is judging this year's team for past wrongs. I am guilty of that as well by blaming the chance to not make a Final Four. Barnes was not at Tennessee for the 100 or so years of Basketball where we have failed to make a Final Four.
Only 5 teams from Rick Barnes have made NCAA Tournaments and I would rank this as the worse team yet it was the only team to live up to its seed. The second run with Grant Williams when we lost to Purdue in OT was probably the best team Barnes put on the court and our best shot.
We need to find a team good enough to make a Final Four and frankly that team would probably be able to secure our first #1 seed. We haven't gotten that team yet. If we want to criticize Barnes, criticize are misses in recruiting (i.e. Phillips).
I am not sure this team deserves the hate for our failures in the past. Alabama, Kansas, Purdue, Arizona, and others failed a lot harder than we did by the way.
