#rickbarnes

Poor Rick Barnes. What’s a coach gotta do to keep their job in this town? Oh that’s right, WIN GAMES. After the departure of Coach Mack Brown in 2014, many people suspected Barnes would be next, unless he got a miracle run in the NCAA Tournament (maybe similar to Augie Garrido’s baseball team having not even made post season in 2013 to getting third in the College World Series in just one year). Unfortunately, Barnes disappointed Texas fans early on in the season with a FOUR-GAME losing streak. Many fans gave up on him after that. But when you have strong seniors like Jonathan Holmes and Cameron Ridley and even the sought after recruit Myles Turner, a four-game losing streak shouldn’t be in the picture. 

Here are some highlights from Rick Barnes’ career as Texas Men’s Basketball coach. Throughout his 17 years as head coach at Texas, Coach Barnes’ team had 402 wins, which were the most in school history; he won three Big 12 regular-season titles; he reached the NCAA tournament 16 times; and Texas even made the Final Four in 2003 for the first time in more than 50 years. But did they ever actually get a National Championship? Nope. Even though getting to the NCAA tournament every year of your coaching career is pretty impressive, Texas holds their sports teams to a higher standard. Making it to the NCAA Tournament isn’t good enough for Texas. I honestly don’t think Barnes would’ve stayed even if they made it into the Sweet Sixteen. 

So now Texas is faced with yet another important coaching decision. The word around here is VCU’s Shaka Smart...What do you think?