The Barnes Way a rarity in today's hoops world
On Saturday night, the Tennessee basketball team is playing for a championship.
Think about that for a minute.
If the Vols win, they can and should post at least a co-champions banner in Thompson-Boling Arena. If Auburn loses at home to South Carolina and Tennessee wins against Georgia, then the Vols win the league outright.
Co-champions or champions, the idea of playing for one Saturday is a big-time feat — and it's not simply because the Vols were picked to finish 13th in the SEC.
It's not a big-time feat simply because the league is as competitive as it's ever been, too.
It's a big-time feat because of how head coach Rick Barnes and his staff have moved the program to this point.
To say Rick Barnes is old school is equal to saying Vol fans wear orange. Barnes is the poster-child of old school. And quite frankly, it's refreshing to see that mentality find success in today's world of college athletics.
I'm a self-proclaimed fan of Rick Barnes, the human being. I'm a fan of his ability to coach (although I don't always agree with him). I've conceded to his way of assembling a team. Now, let me say I wasn't a guy who labeled Barnes, Retirement Rick, as a few have on the General's Quarters.
But I would be lying if I said I thought Barnes could win the SEC without a player on his roster that the blue-bloods of college basketball wanted. Yet, as March rolls around, that's exactly where Barnes & Co. are.
In a day and age of one and done's, of black clouds surrounding the game fueled by agents, financial planners, AAU coaches and shoe company greed, Barnes simply says no thanks.
He doesn't court kids for four years to try and land them for 30 games or so. He has in the past, but at 63, Barnes is more comfortable in his skin than any coach I have ever been around. He's going to do it his way and his way is not the norm.
Barnes' style from Day 1 on Rocky Top was to build. He expected to be in the NCAA Tournament before now, but he was going to do it by building a roster of multi-year players. Some labeled it the Virginia model (a team who by way is winning the ACC). It's not a model of assembling a ready made team. It's not hired guns for a year
It's a model that says you recruit character individuals, coach them extremely hard, and develop their individual game throughout their career. And it's worked nearly to perfection.
It's a raw, honest approach that is the furthest thing from the norm in college athletics these days. A visit to a Barnes' basketball practice shows you plainly that there's no coddling players in his program. A viewing of a press conference shows there's no coddling. Barnes pulls no punches. He's brutally truthful. But his players improve.
It's hard. It's intense. It's raw. And it's rare.
But it's where Barnes is most comfortable. The modern day, unorthodox plan is why Texas people were ready for change. But Barnes' comfort level away from the ugly side of the game is what led former AD Dave Hart to quickly get Barnes to Knoxville.
Coming off an NCAA investigation with Donnie Tyndall, Hart was looking for hoops security and more importantly, safety in how the program would be managed.
That conservative approach in the most aggressive behind the scenes collegiate sport is producing remarkable results. It's producing individual development on the court. It's producing a team.
Most importantly, it's producing wins and Saturday night it could produce a banner.
A heck of an accomplishment considering how against the grain Barnes' program has gone about trying to achieve it.