and as The Athletic\u2019s model assigns a 72 percent chance of happening<\/a>, Barnes has it rolling, too. On a weekend that has seen friends and fellow septuagenarians Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino and Kelvin Sampson all bow out in the Sweet 16, here\u2019s 71-year-old Barnes standing alone as the Elite Eight\u2019s representative of the old school.<\/p>\n\u201cWe do have a standard on a lot of things,\u201d Barnes said of his program after its staples, defense and rebounding, overwhelmed the Cyclones. \u201cIt\u2019s not just what we do on the basketball court. You know, we\u2019re pretty much a no-nonsense program. We talk about that through the recruiting process. We tell everyone it\u2019s going to be tough. We want them to come and want to help them live their dreams, and along the way we would love to have a chance to play for a national championship. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to sit here and act like I\u2019ve tried to figure something out (in the NCAA Tournament), because I haven\u2019t. We try to be consistent. I try to \u2014 as a staff, we try to be the same every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result is that Tennessee has taken on the same look every year. Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack, the four-year bulldogs whose careers ended a year ago with an Elite Eight loss to Houston, got and deserved a lot of the credit for helping Barnes and the Vols break through the March blahs.<\/p>\n
Tennessee stopped playing as if it feared tournament losses. It started playing like it expected, and demanded, to win.<\/p>\n
And that makes this run one of the most impressive things Barnes has done. Yes, he has big-time talent in freshman wing and expected 2026 first-round NBA Draft pick Nate Ament, who had 18 huge points Friday and seems to be getting past his tender ankle and knee. Ja\u2019Kobie Gillespie (16 points) was a crucial transfer portal pickup to replace Zeigler at the point.<\/p>\n
The Vols have depth and other promising young players. But the bulldog quotient has been reduced significantly. This team rarely if ever looked like it had the Elite Eight in its future during an inconsistent regular season.<\/p>\n
Tennessee acquired something that often accompanies March runs: good fortune. Iowa State is a very different team without its best player, Joshua Jefferson, who couldn\u2019t play on the sprained ankle he sustained in the first round. Barnes pointed that out in his opening statement, by the way.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s nothing to apologize for and much to celebrate. He now has three of the four Elite Eights in Tennessee history. He and Duke\u2019s Jon Scheyer are the only coaches who can boast such an active streak.<\/p>\n
And some of the greatest names in coaching don\u2019t have that achievement on their records. Bob Knight, for example. Sampson, for example. Jim Boeheim. Jim Calhoun. Jim Valvano. Many others not named Jim.<\/p>\n
Before this, Bill Self did it from 2016 to \u201918. Izzo did it once, from 1999 to 2001. Pitino once, from 1995 to \u201997. Mike Krzyzewski once, from 1988 to \u201992.<\/p>\n
You can dice up NCAA Tournament records in different ways to make things look better or worse, and it\u2019s true, Barnes has just one Final Four in his career, in 2003 with Texas. Tennessee is the program with the most NCAA wins (34) without a Final Four appearance. That\u2019s the pursuit, that\u2019s when it\u2019s really time to celebrate, and Sunday\u2019s assignment is tougher than last year against Houston or two years ago against Purdue, both eventual national finalists.<\/p>\n
But just as it has been fair to point out Barnes\u2019 past underachievement in the NCAA Tournament, it\u2019s important to recognize this late-career renaissance for what it is. The fact that we\u2019re looking up tournament records to put Barnes successes into context is a whale of a reversal.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s gratifying for the people who know him as one of the sport\u2019s good guys. And for his buddies who got eliminated this weekend but count on him to keep it as old-school as ever. That he certainly does.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing in, he kind of tells you it will be the hardest thing you\u2019ve ever done in you\u2019re life,\u201d Tennessee junior forward Jaylen Carey told The Athletic. \u201cAnd you\u2019re kind of like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve done harder things.\u2019 But no. It\u2019s what he says it is. And you\u2019ve got to love him because he always wants you to be your best. It never comes from a place of hatred.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why he\u2019s one of the GOATs in the coaching game. You\u2019ve got to be coachable if you\u2019re playing for him, and if not, you\u2019re gonna get run into the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carey, who transferred from rival Vanderbilt last offseason, has had ups, downs and extended stretches off the floor this season. He came up huge off the bench Friday, helping batter the Cyclones inside with 11 points and 10 rebounds, while chipping in four assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been after Jaylen harder than anybody all year, anybody,\u201d Barnes said. \u201cThere\u2019s days he looked at me like, \u2018Man, this dude is crazy.\u2019 But he never said a word. Kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carey sounded like his teammates after Friday\u2019s win, and like former Tennessee players from recent teams, talking about winning for Barnes in the NCAA Tournament. It\u2019s becoming a tradition in Knoxville. It\u2019s as familiar, as the calendar pushes toward April each year, as speculation about when Barnes is finally going to decide it\u2019s time to call it quits.<\/p>\n
\u201cShoot, the way he acts?\u201d Carey said. \u201cI think he\u2019ll coach until he\u2019s 100, until the day he\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine the NCAA Tournament distinctions \u2014 desirable ones \u2014 that \u201cRegional Final Rick\u201d could have by then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 Four years earlier, Rick Barnes had no real explanation for his Tennessee team, a No. 3…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,354,6,12,1797],"class_list":{"0":"post-684253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-mens-college-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft","12":"tag-tennessee-volunteers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}