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Tennessee Basketball: Vols Coach Rick Barnes Crossed a Line by Calling Out his Players in a Press Conference

By Caleb Calhoun

Dec 13, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes during the second half against the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles at Thompson-Boling Arena. Tennessee won 74 to 68. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 13, 2016; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes during the second half against the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles at Thompson-Boling Arena. Tennessee won 74 to 68. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports /
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Tennessee basketball head coach Rick Barnes called out his players directly in a postgame press conference after the Volunteers beat Tennessee Tech 74-68.

By now, you’ve probably all seen it. Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes was clearly not happy with his players after nearly blowing a 20-point lead to the Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles on Tuesday.

As a result he publicly called out his players in the postgame press conference.

Barnes directly asked Shembari Phillips and Robert Hubbs III to explain mistakes they made.

The move was in joking fashion, but it came across as incredibly uncomfortable.

Here is the clip of him calling out the players.

Now Barnes is a great coach, and he is clearly building a great program in Knoxville. And again, to be fair to him, this was in jest.

But he was still wrong to do it.

And Vol Nation is being extremely hypocritical to not call him out. If this were Butch Jones, who is now on the hot seat, they would be screaming to the high heavens about how he blames his players and never takes responsibility.

However, Barnes is still in his honeymoon phase with Tennessee basketball, which he deserves to be in given the mess he inherited.

So fans are going to hail what he did here while constantly attacking Jones for what he has said in press conference when he just barely mentions a mistake a player made.

Do we not see the inconsistencies here?

Barnes has a team full of freshmen and sophomores, his only true point guard is hurt, and Admiral Schofield, the point forward, is still working his way back into the lineup. Of course there are going to be mistakes. That’s why he’s getting a honeymoon period to develop the program.

Sure, he is completely fair in mentioning mistakes players made and noting that they need to get better. But to publicly embarrass them in a press conference like that is uncalled for.

No, that does not mean he should be in any kind of hot water. Barnes is doing a great job with the program.

It just means that perhaps he should be a bit fairer to his players, and perhaps Vol fans should hold him to the same standard they’d hold coaches they don’t like to when it comes to handling press conferences.

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