I will try to keep this brief, so may skip over some parts of the overall thought. Sorry for that.
TL;DR version at the very end
Saw in another thread someone post "why can't football have an alum that is as good to UT as Bobby Maze with all his continued "putting on for Tennessee". Well, the far and away biggest reason that we're lacking in that regard is Fulmer's failure to have developed a proper coaching tree with his assistants. No offense to Jerod Mayo, but the fact that he was the most credible UT-tied candidate for the most recent HC opening is a pretty horrific indictment on the lack of any semblance of a coaching tree from Coach Fulmer. Maybe his failure to develop assistants does stem mostly from the way he got the HC job in the first place combined with a misplaced fear of an assistant someday overtaking him, but that Majors deal was before my time (born in '84, as per my handle here). The Fulmer lack of a tree topic could be expounded on plenty more, but I am done with it ITT.
Now for the Rick Barnes coaching tree:
I would like to consider myself maybe one of the top-40 UT basketball posters on this message board, leaning toward the homer side probably. I was legitimately disappointed with the way this past season finished out, and had gotten a bit down on Barnes (side note: I still am probably easily one of the top-3 or 4 Uros homers/apologists in the entire UT fanbase, and still plan to do a breakdown of his minutes in the last 2 games against Alabama and Oregon State to point out the things in his game that I like.). I felt like the team got worse throughout the season. I feel (still) like Barnes hasn't done the best job of instilling confidence in his guys to just go out and play loose, which seems to me to aid in guys having better shooting percentages, not being afraid to take shots, etc. (big h/t to @NYC Vol for aiding in solidifying this perspective on things).
For a single moment in a game that I still want to go back to from one of our devastating losses this season, which actually may have been the turning point of our downward intraseason trajectory, I want to go back to the Ole Miss game where JJJ had been en fuego, but then he turned down a WIDE OPEN 3. From that point, our offense went to the crapper. So, the 2020-21 team, in my view underachieved its ceiling by quite a bit, and actually regressed from the beginning to the end of the season, from my view of things. Was that turning down of that shot a direct result of Barnes? I don't know, maybe not, maybe it was just JJJ having an aversion to seeming like a ball-hog. It was a great look, and JJJ absolutely should have taken it.
This is getting long in the tooth, but the point of this part of the post is that I have been a bit down on Rick Barnes as a head basketball coach, and not entirely just because of his track record in March. That being down-ness, however, is probably due in large part to following things TOO closely.
From a more high-level view of what Rick Barnes has done, he's created a great culture within the program, from all accounts I am aware of. He's got 2 guys that are about to make a lot of money after getting drafted into the NBA. Yves Pons should also have a great chance to play basketball professionally, tbd whether in the G-League or maybe in Europe. The biggest positive Rick has going for him though, is probably his grooming of future head coaches. Just in the past few years, Rick has had 3 assistants go on to D1 head coaching jobs, with Rob Lanier, Kim English, and Desmond Oliver. His success in building a coaching tree does nothing but aid in maintaining the goodwill that Coach Barnes has built up over the years in this profession. Having openings to hire new guys then has its own benefits too, getting new and fresh ideas into the program, but also creating new relationships that can help in recruiting.
That's a lot of words, even trying to keep things short. In summary, grading the coaching tree building of 2 prominent UT coaches from the past 3 decades:
Phil Fulmer's coaching tree - probably a D+ at best
Rick Barnes's coaching tree - probably a B+ at worst, and more likely an A-
TL;DR version at the very end
Saw in another thread someone post "why can't football have an alum that is as good to UT as Bobby Maze with all his continued "putting on for Tennessee". Well, the far and away biggest reason that we're lacking in that regard is Fulmer's failure to have developed a proper coaching tree with his assistants. No offense to Jerod Mayo, but the fact that he was the most credible UT-tied candidate for the most recent HC opening is a pretty horrific indictment on the lack of any semblance of a coaching tree from Coach Fulmer. Maybe his failure to develop assistants does stem mostly from the way he got the HC job in the first place combined with a misplaced fear of an assistant someday overtaking him, but that Majors deal was before my time (born in '84, as per my handle here). The Fulmer lack of a tree topic could be expounded on plenty more, but I am done with it ITT.
Now for the Rick Barnes coaching tree:
I would like to consider myself maybe one of the top-40 UT basketball posters on this message board, leaning toward the homer side probably. I was legitimately disappointed with the way this past season finished out, and had gotten a bit down on Barnes (side note: I still am probably easily one of the top-3 or 4 Uros homers/apologists in the entire UT fanbase, and still plan to do a breakdown of his minutes in the last 2 games against Alabama and Oregon State to point out the things in his game that I like.). I felt like the team got worse throughout the season. I feel (still) like Barnes hasn't done the best job of instilling confidence in his guys to just go out and play loose, which seems to me to aid in guys having better shooting percentages, not being afraid to take shots, etc. (big h/t to @NYC Vol for aiding in solidifying this perspective on things).
For a single moment in a game that I still want to go back to from one of our devastating losses this season, which actually may have been the turning point of our downward intraseason trajectory, I want to go back to the Ole Miss game where JJJ had been en fuego, but then he turned down a WIDE OPEN 3. From that point, our offense went to the crapper. So, the 2020-21 team, in my view underachieved its ceiling by quite a bit, and actually regressed from the beginning to the end of the season, from my view of things. Was that turning down of that shot a direct result of Barnes? I don't know, maybe not, maybe it was just JJJ having an aversion to seeming like a ball-hog. It was a great look, and JJJ absolutely should have taken it.
This is getting long in the tooth, but the point of this part of the post is that I have been a bit down on Rick Barnes as a head basketball coach, and not entirely just because of his track record in March. That being down-ness, however, is probably due in large part to following things TOO closely.
From a more high-level view of what Rick Barnes has done, he's created a great culture within the program, from all accounts I am aware of. He's got 2 guys that are about to make a lot of money after getting drafted into the NBA. Yves Pons should also have a great chance to play basketball professionally, tbd whether in the G-League or maybe in Europe. The biggest positive Rick has going for him though, is probably his grooming of future head coaches. Just in the past few years, Rick has had 3 assistants go on to D1 head coaching jobs, with Rob Lanier, Kim English, and Desmond Oliver. His success in building a coaching tree does nothing but aid in maintaining the goodwill that Coach Barnes has built up over the years in this profession. Having openings to hire new guys then has its own benefits too, getting new and fresh ideas into the program, but also creating new relationships that can help in recruiting.
That's a lot of words, even trying to keep things short. In summary, grading the coaching tree building of 2 prominent UT coaches from the past 3 decades:
Phil Fulmer's coaching tree - probably a D+ at best
Rick Barnes's coaching tree - probably a B+ at worst, and more likely an A-
