I do not think Barnes ever had a motivation issue.
DKR had a streak of 6-4, 7-4 and 6-4 from 65-67. He followed that up with two national championships.
I think Barnes was simply in a bad luck streak.
Following the Elite 8 in 08-09, Barnes rebuilt and his 2010-11 team went 28-8. Unfortunately, we got a bad draw in the NCAA tournament in the second round and faced an elite 8 Arizona team (which only lost by 2 to the national champion UConn Huskies). Bad luck happens (and Barnes suffered it again last year by drawing final four team Loyola-Chicago in the second round). If you win a lot of games and get a higher seed, you are not supposed to face elite 8 or final four caliber teams in the first two rounds.
During the next rebuilding cycle, Barnes had a lot of misses in recruiting which led to his only losing season. It is not that the players were bad, it is that they did not fit and work as a team under the Barnes system. Recruiting misses happen even to Bill Self. The problem is, Barnes had the misfortune of a ton happening together. Fans (in the midst of an idiotic “Brown, Barnes and Augue have all lost it and all suck” phase) misinterpreted this as “Barnes has lost it.” A lot of criticisms leveled against Barnes were the same as ones made against Brown and Augie even though they did not make sense with Barnes.
He learned from his mistakes, and rebuilt again. With a new group, he actually won 24 games and made the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The next year, Isaiah Taylor got hurt and the entire season was derailed. Instead of realizing that Barnes was indeed rebuilding again and the season was derailed due to a key injury, our fans quickly and stupidly reacted by demanding his head. That class seems to have been snake bit as Ridley was hurt the next year which, in fairness to Shaka, derailed that season as well. I’ll also note Myles Turner was not the impact player everyone would thought he would be. He had talent, but it was too raw to be effective in a one and done situation.
Barnes never lost it. He had a bad tournament draw in 2011. He then had a recruiting misfire. Finally, when he did rebuild us back to normal good teams, his team suffered a key injury.
We prematuraly dumped him for someone not as good and are now in a worse place. He took over a worse Tennessee program and has them as a national contender.
You are correct we needed another Barnes and not a worse form of Penders basketball. Yes, we’ll upset teams like UNC and Purdue. However, we’ll lose to VCUs and Radfords and never string together enough games shooting 50% to really contend for anything. Firing Barnes and hiring Smart may have been the worst move in Texas sports history.
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Agree x 1
Last edited: Dec 11, 2018