22-23 season

I was apoplectic going into overtime. The sequence seemed so implausible.

 

Anything 7 or above meets a double digit seed in round one and a 7 seed for an SEC school isn't a particularly great season, merely a decent one. I'm not moved by you, also, restating your position. You still didn't address my main point of what constituted a "great" coach in college basketball. You're trying to make an argument for it, valiantly, but there's only so many ways to tap dance around the fact we've fallen short of where we positioned ourselves for the NCAAs every single time under Barnes. Losing to a double digit seed means you lost to a team who was borderline not supposed to be in the tournament or a mid-major and he's done it three times out of four. Convince me he's a great coach in college basketball.

Otherwise, I'm on board with this being one of the great epochs in Tennessee sports. I need a few more accomplishments to label it the Golden Age, but I'm enjoying the ride.

 

It’s football that needs to provide them.

 

I don't recall making a case that Barnes is a great coach in college basketball to this date. I am making a case that this basketball program is at a peak. I am making a case that any reference to Green as being beyond Barnes is a farce. Shit, does anyone even talk about Green being a great coach? no. But everyone knows Barnes is one deep run away from being solidly in the upper echelon of active coaches.

 

Wikipedia lied to me, which is weird, because everything on the internet is supposed to be true.

 

I certainly am not making the case for Green being so. My only statement is Barnes March accomplishments are on par with his, unfortunately. Barnes is, 100% a far superior coach than Green. Pearl still has more March success than UT than Barnes. I also think Mears would've been as high of a point as the current time had they a different tourney setup than they did in his era. I will say Barnes is a deep run away from this being the peak, though. He has to have at least one, though.

 

I am still worried about ZZ in March.

 

Lunardi currently has us as a 1.

It's January 24 and means nothing, but it's good message board fodder.

 

We are going to have a much tougher back half of the SEC schedule, so I doubt we keep the #1 seed. However, we've got a lot of savings in the bank near the end of January. We have positioned ourselves very well. We need to roll into the Bama game at 22-3 or 21-4.

 

I’m not, barring some kind of matchup nightmare

 

I'm worried about JJJ's knee. Dude is the difference in us being a second weekend team and another first weekend flameout, in my opinion. Santi and JJJ are musts in the tourney or I'm not hopeful.

 

Seems to be a lot better now.

 

Deleted.

 

if jjj is the difference and we get to elite 8, to me, it doesn’t mean Barnes coached better.

 

Fairly annoying to have Bama vying for the 1 seed this year. SEC gets 2 1 seeds potentially and we get shipped out west and they stay in Birmingham then Louisville.

Could we get Birmingham as well for the first weekend? Or do we have to go to Columbus/Orlando?

 

It’s possible to have two teams from the same conference in the same pod. Duke and UNC do it all the time

 

I'm not ready to concede the top spot to Bama yet. They can come claim it in Knoxville.

 

I wouldn’t be surprised to knock them off at home. Just a bit less confident that we don’t slip up the rest of the schedule. They are destroying everyone right now so I’ll be surprised if they lose more than 1 or 2 games.

@ Rupp is looking tougher every day. Reeves is becoming a problem.

 

We were in Greensboro last I checked.

 

I expect us to lose 3-5 more. People are going to flip out but we will be everybody’s game of the year and good teams. Aggies, Mizzou could beat us. Never know what a Pearl team will do. Ky has found it for now and Bama is nasty. We are not healthy.