Nobody blows it in March like Tennessee coach Rick Barnes | Opinion
For the last decade-plus, we’ve been asking the wrong question about Rick Barnes.
Why do his teams routinely underperform in March? That’s no real mystery. At this point, as the 67-year-old Tennessee coach enters the final chapter of his long career in college basketball, we should instead be studying what cosmic forces were aligned in 2003 to launch him to his one and only Final Four.
If you could go back in time and bottle whatever magic was in the ether around his Texas team at that time, who knows what kind of problems the world might be able to solve. Sadly, it seems we’ve missed our chance.
Seriously, how good does a Barnes team have to be to make a deep run in March? How many NBA draft picks does he need to recruit?
We thought that perhaps Tennessee was going to be good enough this time, that these Vols had what it took to overcome the clown suit Barnes puts on annually in the NCAA Tournament. They won the SEC tournament for the first time in decades. They’d been hot for seven weeks. Just last Sunday when the bracket came out, the conversation was about how Tennessee should have been a No. 2 seed or even a No. 1 rather than the No. 3 the committee gave them.
Instead, when it really mattered against No. 11 seed Michigan on Saturday with a Sweet 16 berth on the line, Barnes donned the rainbow wig and big red nose once again as Tennessee collapsed, 76-68.
“Whether you lose in the first round or the Final Four, it’s hard,” said Barnes, who has way more experience with the former than the latter. “We’ll never take for granted being in this tournament.”
Barnes is college basketball’s consummate nice guy. Class act all the way. People who’ve been around the game a long time respect the way he runs his program, the culture he builds with his players and the fact he’s never been in trouble with the NCAA.
But when it comes to March Madness, Barnes' track record is so ghastly it should come with a “Not Safe For Work” warning.
MORE: From bubble to Sweet 16: No. 11 seed Michigan upsets No. 3 Tennessee
MARCH MADNESS: Winners and losers from Saturday's NCAA Tournament games
MORE: Michigan coach comforts Tennessee star after game
Never forget, he couldn’t get past the second round with Kevin Durant. His final seven teams at Texas, all of them filled with highly ranked players, never tasted the Sweet 16. And at Tennessee, he’s now lost twice as a No. 3 seed to an 11 in the second round and was blown out last season in the first round as a No. 5 seed against No. 12 seed Oregon State.
Barnes has been a head coach since 1988 and will almost certainly enter the Hall of Fame at some point due to the volume of victories, NCAA Tournament appearances and coach of the year awards. But what happens to his teams in March is not a fluke. In the NCAA Tournament, coaching staffs have time to scout and prepare for specific opponents. With longer timeouts, in-game adjustments make a difference.
And the reality is that Barnes gets exposed as a mediocre offensive coach every single time.
Michigan, a 17-14 team on Selection Sunday that wouldn’t have been a controversial exclusion from this tournament, certainly played well against the Vols. Big man Hunter Dickinson was a major matchup problem for Tennessee with 27 points and 11 rebounds, while guard Eli Brooks made a couple of circus shots down the stretch.
Barnes’ defenders will shrug and ask why it’s his fault that Tennessee made just 2-of-18 threes or that guard Santiago Vescovi couldn’t get going. But when it became a possession-for-possession game, Michigan was the team running good sets and understanding what it wanted to get out of its offense, while Tennessee was slow to recognize Michigan switching between man and zone and just not getting very good shots down the stretch.
From the 4:05 mark when Michigan tied it at 62-62 until the end of the game, the Vols went 2 for 9 with a turnover. Even worse, after taking a 59-54 lead with 9:41 left, Tennessee scored just nine more points the entire game.
But this isn’t a surprise. Barnes has been to the NCAA Tournament 26 times. It’s no disgrace to lose in the tournament; nearly everyone does every year. But only once — in 2006, as a No. 6 seed in the second round — has Barnes beaten a higher-seeded team. In nine of his last 10 tournament appearances, Barnes’ season has been ended by a lower seed pulling an upset.
The NCAA Tournament is the ultimate theater for drawing conclusions based on small sample sizes. But at this point, there are enough Barnes failures in March to build an entire museum.
The Vols added to it Saturday with a team that looked like it had a real shot at the Final Four. Instead, they’re going home early — and we probably should have seen it coming.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rick Barnes' loss shows no one blows it in March like Tennessee coach
