Report contradicts Rick Barnes account of not taking UCLA job

#51
#51
Let’s ask Calipari, Beard, Wright, and Roy Williams while we’re at it and see if they want to coach here.

I mean, it’s so easy to win here at Tennessee, am I right?

It’s funny that some of y’all truly believe we’re capable of cherry picking basketball coaches.
 
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#52
#52
I stumbled upon an article this morning that talked about the heaping expectations for Barnes now that he is being paid as a top 5 coach in the country. This had to be the 4 or 5th article, post, media, etc. that has made this comment under the pretense that there is no way UT fans are going to be happy with just sweet 16s and first round exits any longer now that he is being paid this much money. IMO this comment is pure drama. The truth is that any of the people that post in this forum and/or take basketball seriously and follow it were not gonna be happy with continued first round exits and just sweet 16s, regardless of what Barnes is getting paid.

For example, imagine this comparison.

A) Barnes does not flirt with UCLA at all. Fulmer and the AD gives Barnes a meager cost of living raise and an extra year on his contract.
B) The reality, Barnes did flirt with UCLA and now he got a huge raise

The question is does either of those scenarios actually change your expectations for next season or the season after? Before we found out about UCLA and the raise, several people were already saying Barnes needed to step up and get an Elite 8 or Final 4. Many people were disappointed in this year tourney. Regardless of the raise, if he continued with 1st round exits and Sweet 16s, does anyone think the fans would be happy for eternity with that? Maybe its just me, but I already had high expectations with Barnes at the helm and his raise didn't change a thing for me. All I see is an AD who simply made damn sure nobody was gonna take our coach this time.
 
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#54
#54
Pride85 said:
I have never seen a portion of a fanbase that cannot handle anything resembling success without imploding. I am just going to sit back and watch the melt down and laugh myself silly.
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I'm not really sure what you mean by this. All the issues were caused by Barnes here. This has nothing to do with the fanbase handling success.
 
#55
#55
One last question and I will leave this silliness alone. Who is the source of the Ben Bolch article? Nothing in the linked material gives a name. Unless something official comes out from the UCLA Athletic Department, any reporting is no more than the unsubstantiated click bait that is the modern realm of journalism. We have become a nation of "Enquiring Minds".
 
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#57
#57
VolArmy74 said:
I have 0 desire to fire Barnes and you'll not find a single post on this site where I say that he deserves to be fired. The NIT hasn't been our regular destination at all over the last two decades at all, as I pointed out in the post you quoted. You're guilty of exactly what I'm talking about, you act like UT is still the UT of late DeVoe, Houston, O'Neil with the 1 NCAA appearance in nearly a decade and a half. This attitude of "we suck so we have to always suck" it just silly. UT hasn't sucked for the last 20 years, 4 different coaches in the sweet 16 in that time. So Barnes isn't the only coach who could win here. It's silly and defeatest to suggest he is when there's clear evidence that others do win here.
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Yet only 11 NCAA appearances in that same 20 years, and RB is responsible for 18% of them after rebuilding a dumpster fire that he inherited. We wouldn’t be shopping in the bargain bin for a coach, necessarily, but there is no guarantee we nail the hire with a green AD who has never hired a basketball coach in his life. He just hired a relatively blah Kellie Jolly-Harper for one of the proudest women’s programs in NCAA history. That doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence that we wouldn’t have ended up with Buzz Peterson 2.0 for me. And to be fair, you could argue DeVoe and O’Neill were better coaches than Peterson, Tyndall, or Martin, and still didn’t win consistently enough. Just different styles in different eras, and prickly personalities.
 
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#58
#58
VolFreakJosh said:
Let’s ask Calipari, Beard, Wright, and Roy Williams while we’re at it and see if they want to coach here.

I mean, it’s so easy to win here at Tennessee, am I right?

It’s funny that some of y’all truly believe we’re capable of cherry picking basketball coaches.
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Jerry Green went to 4 NCAAs and the Sweet 16 here. Bruce Pearl went to 6 NCAA tournaments here and the Elite 8. Cuonzo Martin went to the Sweet 16 here. Rick Barnes has now went to the sweet 16 here. That's 4 coaches in the last 20 years who have won here. Martin and Green aren't even good coaches and had more success here than any other place they've been. Rick isn't exactly known as a post season guy and made the sweet 16. If Barnes had left, I don't think anyone expects us to pluck Roy Williams as your silly strawman argument suggests. But who was Chris Beard before he took the Texas Tech job? He was a guy who had a great season at Arkansas-Little Rock. Who was Jay Wright before Villanova? He was a guy Tennessee could have hired out of Hofstra.

There are 347 NCAA DI basketball teams. I believe Tennessee is 40th all time out of the 347. Tennessee was a disaster from the mid 80s until the late 1990s. But other than that there's been a lot of winning basketball played here by many different coaches. Just not the highest level of winning we all want in the post season.
 
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#60
#60
cncchris33 said:
Yet only 11 NCAA appearances in that same 20 years, and RB is responsible for 18% of them after rebuilding a dumpster fire that he inherited. We wouldn’t be shopping in the bargain bin for a coach, necessarily, but there is no guarantee we nail the hire with a green AD who has never hired a basketball coach in his life. He just hired a relatively blah Kellie Jolly-Harper for one of the proudest women’s programs in NCAA history. That doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence that we wouldn’t have ended up with Buzz Peterson 2.0 for me. And to be fair, you could argue DeVoe and O’Neill were better coaches than Peterson, Tyndall, or Martin, and still didn’t win consistently enough. Just different styles in different eras, and prickly personalities.
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13 NCAAs since 1998, I miscounted it as 14 earlier and 9 NCAAs in the last 13 years. That's not bad at all. DeVoe was hopeless once the shot clock became a thing. O'Neill was not ever proven to be a good coach. Good recruiter who somehow got good jobs, but was never terribly successful at Tennessee or after he left Tennessee. He has a losing record in his career both in college and the NBA and generally flamed out every where he went.
 
#61
#61
VolArmy74 said:
Jerry Green went to 4 NCAAs and the Sweet 16 here. Bruce Pearl went to 6 NCAA tournaments here and the Elite 8. Cuonzo Martin went to the Sweet 16 here. Rick Barnes has now went to the sweet 16 here. That's 4 coaches in the last 20 years who have won here. Martin and Green aren't even good coaches and had more success here than any other place they've been. Rick isn't exactly known as a post season guy and made the sweet 16. If Barnes had left, I don't think anyone expects us to pluck Roy Williams as your silly strawman argument suggests. But who was Chris Beard before he took the Texas Tech job? He was a guy who had a great season at Arkansas-Little Rock. Who was Jay Wright before Villanova? He was a guy Tennessee could have hired out of Hofstra.

There are 347 NCAA DI basketball teams. I believe Tennessee is 40th all time out of the 347. Tennessee was a disaster from the mid 80s until the late 1990s. But other than that there's been a lot of winning basketball played here by many different coaches. Just not the highest level of winning we all want in the post season.
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There are actually 351 D1 teams, and let’s say 10% of those are current or future elite coaches. The odds are already stacked against you nailing down one of those 35 candidates, many of whom aren’t leaving their current job (Coach K, Self, Wright, etc.), but then we expect a second year AD who has never made a basketball coaching hire to catch lightning in a bottle? Chances seem remote if I’m playing the odds. Much greater chance we land a Buzz than a Bruce going that route.

Maybe if people looked at this as a long-term investment in the program by showing we aren’t afraid to pay big money so that in 5 years, we are that much more attractive to potential candidates, the idea of the investment wouldn’t seem so offensive. We are much less likely to take a giant step backward with Barnes at $5 million than we are with a wildcard at $2.5 million. The ceiling may be lower, but the floor is much higher.
 
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#62
#62
VolArmy74 said:
13 NCAAs since 1998, I miscounted it as 14 earlier and 9 NCAAs in the last 13 years. That's not bad at all. DeVoe was hopeless once the shot clock became a thing. O'Neill was not ever proven to be a good coach. Good recruiter who somehow got good jobs, but was never terribly successful at Tennessee or after he left Tennessee. He has a losing record in his career both in college and the NBA and generally flamed out every where he went.
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Since 1998 is 22 years, so like I said,11 in the last 20 years. And again, different eras, but in a vacuum, I’d take either over Buzz, Tyndall, or Zo.
 
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#63
#63
VolArmy74 said:
I have 0 desire to fire Barnes and you'll not find a single post on this site where I say that he deserves to be fired. The NIT hasn't been our regular destination at all over the last two decades at all, as I pointed out in the post you quoted. You're guilty of exactly what I'm talking about, you act like UT is still the UT of late DeVoe, Houston, O'Neil with the 1 NCAA appearance in nearly a decade and a half. This attitude of "we suck so we have to always suck" it just silly. UT hasn't sucked for the last 20 years, 4 different coaches in the sweet 16 in that time. So Barnes isn't the only coach who could win here. It's silly and defeatest to suggest he is when there's clear evidence that others do win here.
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What exactly do you want out of this thread? Because you’re all over the place.
 
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#64
#64
Still reads like Guerrero is still trying to save face for the clusterfu-k hiring search he led....
 
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#65
#65
VolFreakJosh said:
Let’s ask Calipari, Beard, Wright, and Roy Williams while we’re at it and see if they want to coach here.

I mean, it’s so easy to win here at Tennessee, am I right?

It’s funny that some of y’all truly believe we’re capable of cherry picking basketball coaches.
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And if we DID have one of these dream coaches? And they entertained an offer to leave for one of these more prestigious jobs but our AD nutted up some money and we kept him? We run him out on a rail because we’re not his number one? None of us are paying a dime extra to keep him. Ticket sales go up every year...regardless of wins and losses.
 
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#67
#67
butchna said:
And if we DID have one of these dream coaches? And they entertained an offer to leave for one of these more prestigious jobs but our AD nutted up some money and we kept him? We run him out on a rail because we’re not his number one? None of us are paying a dime extra to keep him. Ticket sales go up every year...regardless of wins and losses.
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But But they tenda feelins is hoit.
 
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#68
#68
Pride85 said:
If he didn't want to be here, he wouldn't be here. Did you get left at the altar or something? Does this in any way directly affect your life other than watching a College Basketball team?
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So a topic must effect someone's life to have a discussion about it? Seriously, if you're going to attempt to insult someone at least make sense doing it
 
#70
#70
He played us like a Stradevarias (probably spelled wrong). Just like Van Gundy at OSU. This will probably come up at the next negotiation......
 
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#71
#71
Regardless, we have a proven coach (the only one at UT major sports) be having to break in a new one and loss of huge committed players. So, I’ll take it where we are...it’s not my money they are spending, at the end of the day
 
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#73
#73
butchna said:
So fire him. Who’s his replacement?
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There’s no need to find his replacement since Barnes lied his way to a big payday, genius. That’s the freaking point. If Barnes had his way he’d be at UCLA right now. But he’s all for Tennessee since he cajoled Fulmer.

Hey you’re the resident expert on sarcasm so please provide some more obviousisms pal.
 
#75
#75
SmokeyLives said:
There’s no need to find his replacement since Barnes lied his way to a big payday, genius. That’s the freaking point. If Barnes had his way he’d be at UCLA right now. But he’s all for Tennessee since he cajoled Fulmer.

Hey you’re the resident expert on sarcasm so please provide some more obviousisms pal.
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Obviousism isn’t a word, and I can’t take anyone seriously who would issue said non-word. Not that you were ever a threat to be taken seriously. 😉 As for the rest of your rabble, you just yell out “lie” and try to slither yourself out of having to answer a question. You didn’t have a solution. It’s ok...we already know.
 
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