Worst basketball team since

#252
#252
As others have pointed out even the blue blood programs have “those years”, look at North Carolina this year...the question is does Barnes make a habit of having a good team 66% of the time, or is it more like 90%? You can still be a Top 10-15 program and have a down year, Villanova has, Florida, UNC currently etc. but the key is those years being far and few between. If the next 5 years produce NCAAT teams then I don’t This this year is much of an issue, if we miss this year and a couple more times in the next 5 years then it’s a problem.
 
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#253
#253
bleedingTNorange said:
As others have pointed out even the blue blood programs have “those years”, look at North Carolina this year...the question is does Barnes make a habit of having a good team 66% of the time, or is it more like 90%? You can still be a Top 10-15 program and have a down year, Villanova has, Florida, UNC currently etc. but the key is those years being far and few between. If the next 5 years produce NCAAT teams then I don’t This this year is much of an issue, if we miss this year and a couple more times in the next 5 years then it’s a problem.
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I don’t disagree but I also think it’s fair to realize this time period is a new age SEC with the best collection of coaches in the nation. For me 6-7 trips to the dance in 10 is acceptable if a few of those years are like our last two.
 
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#254
#254
Lmao this team is still better than Rick’s first two teams and Donnie Tyndal’s team
 
#256
#256
Alex10 said:
I didn’t say anything about firing Barnes. I said he should be held accountable for the team he has put on the court this year. Their can be a difference in being disappointed with someone and calling for their heads, most people don’t seem to realize this. It’s just a bad look to me to flirt with another job to get a big pay raise and become one of the highest paid coaches and then turn around and have a team that has basically regressed back to a roster similar to when he took over. In college basketball if your paying a guy top 5 money and you actually want top 5 results then we aren’t getting them. By that I don’t mean we should be a top 5 team every year, but the really good programs don’t take 2 or 3 years to build up a contender and then have a year where they completely regresss into a subpar team, the top programs reload much better than that. I’m not saying Tennessee is a blue blood I know they aren’t but the fact still remains we are paying blue blood money. We also have great facilities, fans and financial support, really there isn’t a reason with the right coach we couldn’t be a perennial top 10-15 type team.
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For what it's worth I'm not convinced Barnes flirtation with UCLA was about the money. Obviously I can't know for sure.

I think it's very possible it was about the allure of UCLA basketball. He and I are the same age and during our formative years John Wooden and UCLA were basketball. The only time I ever pulled for them to lose was when we played them in Atlanta during the mid seventies. When I went into coaching I bought Wooden's definitive book on coaching, "Practical Modern Basketball", and I would wager Barnes has a copy in his office.

It's probably hard to understand the connection to UCLA that many basketball junkies of our generation had. I'm an alumnus of UT , but held no hard feelings towards Barnes over him wanting to leave us for Pauley Pavilion. When I was young I used to joke that my version of hell would be locked in Pauley all alone without a ball.

I mention all this to give possible context to some of the negativity about his contract.
 
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#257
#257
76vol said:
For what it's worth I'm not convinced Barnes flirtation with UCLA was about the money. Obviously I can't know for sure.

I think it's very possible it was about the allure of UCLA basketball. He and I are the same age and during our formative years John Wooden and UCLA were basketball. The only time I ever pulled for them to lose was when we played them in Atlanta during the mid seventies. When I went into coaching I bought Wooden's definitive book on coaching, "Practical Modern Basketball", and I would wager Barnes has a copy in his office.

It's probably hard to understand the connection to UCLA that many basketball junkies of our generation had. I'm an alumnus of UT , but held no hard feelings towards Barnes over him wanting to leave us for Pauley Pavilion. When I was young I used to joke that my version of hell would be locked in Pauley all alone without a ball.

I mention all this to give possible context to some of the negativity about his contract.
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An intelligent, unemotional, common sense response that aims to put something into proper perspective. How’d this post end up on this forum?!
 
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#259
#259
BruinVol said:
I don’t disagree but I also think it’s fair to realize this time period is a new age SEC with the best collection of coaches in the nation. For me 6-7 trips to the dance in 10 is acceptable if a few of those years are like our last two.
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I’d say those are kinda low expectations.
 
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#261
#261
BruinVol said:
Maybe so but if we do better than means a number of really good coaches didn’t do well
In this league
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Barnes as a HOF coach has never in his entire career been a 4 misses out of 10 coach. Why would you accept that now?
 
#265
#265
BruinVol said:
Well he’s already missed 2. I’m only willing to give him 2 more
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Unless there are multiple departures from next year's roster I'm calling 2021 a lock. Same thing in 2022... if Springer, Johnson, AND JJJ (or Walker) leave then it might depend on the 2021 signing class. Grab another top 20 recruit or 2 and we're rolling.
 
#266
#266
76vol said:
For what it's worth I'm not convinced Barnes flirtation with UCLA was about the money. Obviously I can't know for sure.

I think it's very possible it was about the allure of UCLA basketball. He and I are the same age and during our formative years John Wooden and UCLA were basketball. The only time I ever pulled for them to lose was when we played them in Atlanta during the mid seventies. When I went into coaching I bought Wooden's definitive book on coaching, "Practical Modern Basketball", and I would wager Barnes has a copy in his office.

It's probably hard to understand the connection to UCLA that many basketball junkies of our generation had. I'm an alumnus of UT , but held no hard feelings towards Barnes over him wanting to leave us for Pauley Pavilion. When I was young I used to joke that my version of hell would be locked in Pauley all alone without a ball.

I mention all this to give possible context to some of the negativity about his contract.
Click to expand...

Speaking of connections to UCLA basketball from back in the day. I grew up in that era as well. In 1976/77 I was in the middle of my training in the Navy’s nuclear power program. In the desert in Idaho there were three nuclear power prototype plants, one for a sub, one for a cruiser, and one for a carrier. I was there at the time of this event going through by training I guess it was the winter of 76/77. Anyway, I played on the base basketball team. The captain of the base was on the team too. I remember in practice one day he undercut me while I was going up for a layup and I had a few choice words for him. He just told me to toughen up. I was the only trainee on the team. Anyway, that was the year Idaho State beat UCLA in basketball. Our based team played against Idaho State’s junior varsity that winter. I remember it mostly because freaking Idaho State had just beaten UCLA. Wow! The mighty have fallen. Oh, yeah, and we lost to Idaho State’s JV team by 45 points.
 
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#272
#272
We're a middle-of-the-road SEC team. Why some people are acting like this'll be one of the worst teams in Tennessee basketball history is beyond me, I can think of at least five SEC teams that are easily worse than us right now. Not that that's great, but the incessant whining over how bad this team is grows tiresome. To invoke Wade Houston's name is patently absurd, this team is better than the two teams in Barnes' first two years.

The only way to conclude that this team is hopelessly terrible is if you think defense is completely unimportant to the game of basketball. This team (after today's game) is now in the top 25 in the country in defensive efficiency...bad teams don't do that.
 
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#273
#273
Vols have Ole Miss and A&M, both at home for the next 2 SEC games. Yes, we go to Kansas in between those games, but that just means, UT plays their real sh!tty game against the Jayhawks. 5-2 in the SEC is very doable. In fact, I will be disappointed if we don't win both those games.
 
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#275
#275
nirwin said:
We're a middle-of-the-road SEC team. Why some people are acting like this'll be one of the worst teams in Tennessee basketball history is beyond me, I can think of at least five SEC teams that are easily worse than us right now. Not that that's great, but the incessant whining over how bad this team is grows tiresome. To invoke Wade Houston's name is patently absurd, this team is better than the two teams in Barnes' first two years.

The only way to conclude that this team is hopelessly terrible is if you think defense is completely unimportant to the game of basketball. This team (after today's game) is now in the top 25 in the country in defensive efficiency...bad teams don't do that.
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This team is possibly the biggest unknown at this point in the season of any Tennessee team I can remember, and I've been following the Vols since the late 1950's. The flashes of brilliance followed by play that leaves you wondering “where did these guys come from” is confounding. They need a leader to emerge and unfortunately, I don’t think its coming from their upper classmen. I mean come on Jordon Bowden! I could see this team hitting their stride and after barely making it into the big dance making a run or just as likely going off the rails into oblivion. Here’s hoping it’s the former. GBO
 
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