7. It would have been an 8 or perhaps even a 9, but the last few weeks have been disappointing.
This was never supposed to be a tournament team. We were supposed to be the dogmeat of the SEC, with a team of underclassmen and a 5* senior who never played up to his ranking. Instead, we were in the bubble picture until the last couple of weeks when the wheels came off. These freshmen can help us win some games in the coming years, and Hubbs morphed into a serviceable (if inconsistent) leader for this team. Barnes probably saved his career. He's not an NBA prospect at this point, but I could see him succeeding in FIBA somewhere and I wouldn't have said that prior to the season.
I'd still like to see him recruit at a higher level. That said, Pons is a very good addition - an elite athlete with NBA upside. And Barnes' last recruiting class punched well above its weight in terms of recruiting ranking.
Overall, I'm content with what Barnes has done here. He still has a lot of work to do, but thus far, he's done reasonably well.
Eh fans will be fans. They freak out. A real assessment is we don't know if Barnes is the right man for the job. Our motion offense gets good looks when the players run and cut hard. Our defense is pretty good being that are best rim protector is 6'5. I see good young talent and the team is obviously not there yet. Let hope Barnes gets them there
of course you're looking forward to seeing "Johnson"I'll stick with my original 7.
TN could have had a couple of more wins... maybe even an NCAAT invite had CRB kept Mostella on the team. It hurt this year, but could be the best move for the program in the long run. I'm looking forward to seeing what Johnson brings.
After today's performance, I dropped Barnes rating down from a 6 to a 3. Very bad coaching at the end of the game.
4 if we miss the NIT. 5 if we make the NIT. 7 if we beat both UGA and UK in the SECT. 7.5 if we reach the SECT final. 9.5 if we win the SECT.
So, yeah, I'm down to a 4 right now, because we are a .500 team in Year 2 and seem to be getting out-recruited by the vast majority of the league. I'll quickly change my tune if the team makes some history next week.
I think that Barnes had planned on 2016-17 to be a stepping stone season. He certainly didn't want it to go off the rails with single digit wins which would have crushed the confidence of the players he's developing. But I don't think he was expecting anything more than this 16-16 after losing Bone/Fulkerson/Mostella and having Hubbs and Bowden playing through health issues down the stretch. Considering how many games were missed by those 5 important contributors, it's kind of amazing that 16-16 was achieved and there was talk of making it into the NCAAT for a month or so.
The attrition on the basketball roster pretty much mirrored what happened to the football team. It's been devastating in both sports... hopefully nothing like this academic year ever comes close to happening again.