2019-2020 Season

Exactly this.

If he misses the tourney next year - which seems more likely than not - he’ll have only made 2 tourneys in 5 years. That’s unacceptable, even at his old salary, or by any standard.

Rick Barnes has won a share of an SEC-regular season title and “jack shit” otherwise.

Y’all can act like his faith, his development of players or his “stability” is a suitable substitute for winning rings and hanging banners, but it’s not, and it’s stupid for anyone to confuse the two.

 

Its not a substitute. Goodness basketball hasnt hung many banners. We just finished year 4 in devastating fashion after the most wins in a 2 year span in our program history.
Expectations are higher than they ever have been. Nobody is denying it.
But i cant watch an entire season only thinking about NC and banners. Its entertainment. Championships are few and far between. If you can't enjoy a basketball season without a title, you may as well skip the other 30+ games.

 

You, and everybody else, are throwing the baby out with my argumentative bath water.

Last season was the most fun I’ve ever had in a basketball, or any other, season. Clearly, with that, I can enjoy a season that doesn’t end in a title.

That Bruin Barnes has improved the program is equal parts impressive and self-evident. I agreed and am grateful that Tennessee decided to pay to keep him. It was the right call.

I’ve consistently said and admitted the truth in all of this.

But Bruins Barnes’ obvious disinterest for being on and closing via the recruiting trail, except when it involves shopping himself to UCLA, is unacceptable. Period. Hard stop.

And what he basically said one month ago is that he’s just a hired gun at Tennessee, and we paid him as such, for however much longer he may stay here. So I’m now simply responding to that obvious truth, and which is of his own admission. He’s only here because we’re paying him $5M/yr (well...that and UCLA wouldn’t pay his buyout), which is the third highest paid coach in the country. And that’s guaranteed money - meaning, he gets it no matter what. So, I now expect my hired gun to provide equitable results from the sizable investment we’ve made, which is both entirely reasonable and one which he should be held to perform. And I intend to do it, at every opportunity, without a whit of goofily misplaced sentimentality, and the same which he’s already refused to extend to me, to you, and to Tennessee, again, by his own admission.

Y’all can continue to think that the hooker shows you so much attention because she really, really likes you / your looks / personality / witty charm, etc.

I know that’s a lie, and somewhere you do, too. You want to act like you don’t know that, and I’m not willing to do the same. Because it’s not true. And it’s stupid. That’s why.

Because Bruin Barnes is just a basic whore who doesn’t care anything about us besides our money, and which is fine.....but by god, if that’s all we are, well, he best get to and keep dancing, no matter what, and for as long as I’m spending $5M in making it rain.

$5M a year had better damned well not only get us to the AA’s every year, at a minimum, but well beyond the underachieving and disappointing bounce in the Sweet 16 in back-to-back seasons.

Dance, Bruin Barnes, dance!

 

Tenny, your obsession with Barnes and recruiting is weird. I don't know how many times people have to point out that he has done a pretty decent job recently in recruiting for you to finally read and recognize it.

A down year for us is expected. Personally, I still think we make the tournament, but I won't be calling for Barnes's head if we don't. The 2020 recruiting class and the following year's performance will be the big things to watch, in my mind.

 

I think tenny has laid out his position well, but the not subtle aspect of a down year missing the tournament being unacceptable seems to just not register for some. you can disagree, but this isn't really a recruiting issue. it's a performance regarding winning games issue. it is not an "in Indy's mind" metric.

 

Because it’s utterly indefensible and inexcusable to think that the third highest paid coach in the country could miss the tournament in 3 of his first FIVE (5) years.

But that’s exactly what we’re now and most likely looking at for next season.

And these dipshits aren’t merely failing to call it what it is - inexcusable - but are actually falling all over themselves to defend him from it, and a situation purely and singularly of his own making.

Ostensibly, because they’re stupid.

 

My “obsession” with Bruin Barnes’ recruiting should be so easily discerned as to be self-evident and unavoidable, but here it is, in handy child-like form:

1. Winning games is the critical and necessary ingredient to both maintaining and further advancing the currently elevated status of our basketball program. It’s also the singular means of attaining regular season and tournament championships.

2. There is no metric that more strongly, positively and consistently correlates to winning games, than the attainment and deployment of superior talent.

3. Superior talent must be won on the recruiting trail, and where few things are more important or highly valued than the consistently active involvement of the head coach.

4. At best, our head coach doesn’t understand this fundamental truth, or does, but improperly devalues it. At worst, he does understand this truth, it’s proper value and his intrinsically important role in it - but he carelessly and selfishly places his own needs and personal preferences first, and above those, in the foolish belief that his feeling that he’s “earned” the right to not actively recruit somehow negates or somehow makes numbers 1-3, above, any less true.

5. Our current head coach also wants us to pay him as the third highest paid coach in the country, and while refusing to actively and consistently fulfill his necessary role in recruiting, and which is arguably, not only a large determining factor in our success, but a sizable reason why we pay him that money.

6. His current recruitment efforts, while improving, are still markedly subpar and woefully inconsistent, both to that of his contemporaries and what this program so obviously requires, if it is to take and maintain the next step forward, and which is an entirely reasonable expectation that fans should have, and hold him accountable to produce.

You can talk all day long about how much better his recruitment is, or how certain you are that it’ll soon be improved (I’ll believe it when recruits are signed) - and I join you in hoping that it is - but it should be light years better than it now is. Both now and over the last 4 years. Had this coach not taken two years off in recruiting a few years ago, and had he committed himself to more than the half-assed efforts he’s made since first arriving, we’d all be arguing whether or not we could make the Final Four next season, instead of our current reality, and where we now just hope to somehow make the field.

Things stand where they currently are because Bruin Barnes either allowed and intentionally drove us here.

 

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...g-college-basketball-underappreciated-coaches

Coaches who are underappreciated because they've won so often their success is taken for granted (The John Calipari category)

5. Rick Barnes: In April, UCLA chased Barnes after the veteran led Tennessee to its best season in a decade with a 31-6 record and the team's first No. 1 ranking since the 2007-08 season. Two of his players, Admiral Schofield and Grant Williams, are projected second-round picks in this summer's NBA draft. Barnes arrived in 2015 as the longtime Texas coach who was fired by an athletic director, Steve Patterson, who thought Texas deserved better. Well, Texas fired Patterson months after he'd dismissed Barnes. And Barnes has won more games at Tennessee in the past two seasons (56) than Texas has won over the past three seasons (51). That job, as Shaka Smart has learned, isn't easy. Barnes deserved more respect in Austin and he finally received it in Knoxville.

 

I'll give Barnes the opportunity to make the tournament or not in the upcoming season before criticizing him for the recruiting efforts and team he has assembled for 2019-20. Otherwise, I'll echo Tenny in that not making the tournament should be an unacceptable outcome for this go-around. I understand it may not be as good this year; there are fluctuations. However, making the tournament is a low bar for a coach being paid as if he were one of the top 5 best in the nation.

That said, early reports are good on the 7 footer from Arizona State and the Finnish kid we picked up late. Barnes reputation for developing talent will be put to the test this year and he will need to deliver on a higher level of recruiting, as it seems he is, since finding Grant Williams-types is a difficult way to live as a high major.

 

We are not "likely" to miss the tournament next season. That's just not true. I don't know why you keep saying it, as if someone knowledgeable is projecting it. Saying it's a possibility is not the same as calling it likely.

 

Not gonna pay much attention to drama from someone who doesnt even watch games and called Bone a subpar pg with no ability during the season.

 

This take is pretty reasonable. After giving Barnes the opportunity to make/miss the tournament, I'll see how the season plays out before calling it "unacceptable."

 

I’ll be glad to be wrong. Elated, even.

That our making the tournament is even a legitimate question in Bruin Barnes’ fifth season is a damning indictment on his tenure, by any standard, and only proves what I’ve said about his disdain for recruiting.

 

Tell me where I’m wrong.

Tell me.
Where.
I am.
Wrong.

 

Looking at the roster for next year, it seems it's more likely than not that we miss the tournament unless Turner and Bowden turn into the college version of Curry/Thompson.

 

Finnish kid? Either I missed something or we have a Finnish guy who doesn't have a Finnish name.

 

You are calling people dumb and stupid based off an argument no-one is making.
Additionally, if high ranked recruiting was the end all be all, we wouldnt have beaten KY so often recently. And UvaTtech wouldnt have been in the title game.
Need good pg, shooters and role players picked by eval and fit on the team concept.

 

The roster issues are overstated. We will have plenty of talent on the roster. The bigger issue will be youth and consistency. The only position truly in question is the 4.

 

It's reasonable to think that we take a step forward at the 5 with Plavsic and Burns replacing Kyle Alexander.

Our 2 stays the same with Turner. James probably splits minutes here too.

Our 3 probably doesn't see much of a drop off with Bowden replacing Admiral. I don't think he brings the same leadership qualities, but I think he can be a better scorer, and he's already a better defender today.

Our 1 probably sees a bit of a drop off. Turner will probably split minutes here with James, who is supposed to be solid. We will definitely miss Bone, but the drop off isn't going to be as significant as some think.

The 4 remains the issue. You get some solid minutes from Fulkerson here. You might get some minutes from Plavsic/Burns if you can put both of them on the floor at the same time. The hope is that the ORN kid can step in and take some minutes. You may also see Bowden, or even James here in a small ball lineup.

The bench is a wild card. Can Pons improve enough over the offseason to become a solid bench contributor? The expectation is that the Bailey kid won't be eligible, but if he is, that helps. Then there's Johnson and Kent. If they can't find the floor this season, I don't think we see them back next year.

 

The new recruit, Olivier something, is from Finland.