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Rick Barnes’s First Tennessee Vols Basketball Team Will Look Like Bruce Pearl’s Old Teams

By Caleb Calhoun

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With Tennessee basketball right around the corner, Rick Barnes will have his first Volunteers team looking like the teams Bruce Pearl coached in Knoxville.

Though he did not outright say it, Rick Barnes’s message at Tennessee Basketball Media Day on Monday implied something very clear.

Based on his personnel, his first team will be based on tempo.

The style was described in a Knoxville News-Sentinel article by Grant Ramey. 

"The brand of basketball Barnes and his staff rely on is up-tempo on both ends of the floor. An offense that wants to put a shot up in seven seconds or less and a transition defense required to support that kind of offensive mentality.“He preaches a lot about transition from play to play,” senior forward Derek Reese said. “In the game, you don’t have the opportunity to sit there and think about the play, you have to keep going.”"

This is not to say that Rick Barnes is in any way similar to Bruce Pearl. He is more of a coach who draws from his experiences to adapt to his personnel.

But this year, his personnel deems that he play up-tempo.

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And guess where he learned his up-tempo coaching style: as an assistant under Gary Williams at Ohio State in the 1980s. The former Maryland Terrapins hall of fame basketball coach who won a national championship is a protege of Dr. Tom Davis. Guess who else is. Bruce Pearl.

From that connection, Barnes is obviously going to use his transition game the way Williams and Pearl did, and he will also implement the Flex offense.

This is perfect for the team he is inheriting.

A roster loaded with skilled athletes, from Kevin Punter to Armani Moore to Devon Baulkman to Jabari McGhee to Detrick Mostella, and of course, finally, to the prized bull Robert Hubbs III mandates this style.

In fact, outside of Derek Reese, there is nobody over 6’4″ or over 220 pounds who played significant minutes in any form last year.

The veterans are all athletes, and Barnes hopes to mix in newcomers like Ray Kasongo and Kyle Alexander along with Jabari McGhee returning to health to have any sort of post presence.

But McGhee is only 6’5″ 207 pounds.

So what does all of this mean?

Tennessee’s personnel is built just like Bruce Pearl’s first team was built when he arrived in Knoxville in 2005. Kevin Punter is CJ Watson, Armani Moore has already taken on the role of Dane Bradshaw, Derek Reese is Andre Patterson, and Jabari McGhee is Stanley Asumnu.

Meanwhile, he has not reached it yet, but Robert Hubbs III should finally reach his potential this year, making him the Chris Lofton of this class, just a taller, worse shooter but better scoring version of Lofton.

And Alexander or Kasongo is going to have to take on the role of Major Wingate.

It’s crazy to think about, but the Vols could get red hot this season, and maybe Barnes will have a splash his first season in Knoxville similar to Pearl.

His comments at Media Day hint that this will at least be a fun team to watch.

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