Tennessee basketball: Could Rick Barnes cost Vols with constant criticism?

Tennessee basketball head coach Rick Barnes always finds faults with his team. Could that end up costing the Volunteers in the NCAA Tournament?

There’s no doubt that one of the reasons Rick Barnes has made Tennessee basketball so successful is the way he’s pushed his team. He’s never satisfied and always finding ways for them to get better.

It showed again after a win over the Arkansas Razorbacks Tuesday night. The No. 3 ranked Vols won 106-87 at home to move to 15-1 and 4-0 in the SEC. But in the midst of a blowout win, Barnes admitted that he told the team they weren’t “totally locked in” and lamented the fact that Arkansas, a fast-paced team of runs, managed to narrow the gap in the second half. Remember, the Vols won by 19 and scored 106 points.

This is what makes Barnes the anti-Butch Jones, who constantly made excuses for his players. And it has certainly turned Tennessee basketball into an elite team, one that could reach No. 1 by next week.

But as Barnes makes these statements, it’s time to question if you can go deep in the postseason that way. With all due respect to what Barnes has built, don’t forget that in 17 years with the Texas Longhorns, he made one Final Four and never won a national championship. He never even made it past the first weekend after 2008, which is why he got fired.

And while a head coach is supposed to criticize and develop his players, don’t they need to give some positive reinforcement at times? His team is on an 11-game winning streak, and the football team has a more recent loss than these guys. Their only loss is in overtime to a Top 10 team in which one of their top scorers was still finding his rhythm.

Why not, at some point, just say good job? The Vols may have made a few mistakes with remaining locked in on Tuesday, but that’s worth a mention at the next day’s practice. At this point, shouldn’t Barnes be touting publicly what his team has done? They have only one four-star recruit in their rotation, and only one player on the team is over 6’9″.

Yet, through it all, they are in position to be ranked No. 1 in the nation next week. They’ve won all four SEC games by double-digits, two of which were on the road, and two of which were by 24 points or more. This is a collection of guys overachieving in a way nobody could have predicted. At some point, their coach just needs to praise what they’ve done.

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Remember, before criticizing their play in a 19-point win on Tuesday, Barnes on Monday criticized his players for doing the Gator Chomp after their road win over the Florida Gators Saturday. That’s something any rival school would do in the heat of the moment after a big win. Why not just let them enjoy a bit of their success for a minute?

Could the way Barnes grinds on his team wear them down so much that they can’t continue the momentum down the stretch? You have to wonder that. People say the same thing about Jim Harbaugh, which is why Harbaugh has a lot of wins but no national championships.

You can say Nick Saban is demanding, and that’s true, but Saban has a track record of passionately defending his players in press conferences as well. Don’t forget when he lashed out at the media for criticizing his players after a 14-13 win over the Arkansas Razorbacks back in 2014. For every notable bit of Saban criticism, there’s a rant of him defending his guys.

How is anybody supposed to respond to something when, over the course of a year, nothing they do is ever good enough? This isn’t to say Barnes should ever call his players life champions. But a little bit of praise here and there could be nice.

Right now, Tennessee basketball is thriving under Barnes’s leadership, and what he has done has made complete players out of Admiral Schofield, Grant Williams and Lamonte Turner. It’s clear that Barnes’s method makes players better. What’s not clear, though, is if it’s capable of ever winning a national championship, and that has to be the goal of the Vols this season.

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Now, the good news is that Tennessee basketball, as a program, is content with regular NCAA Tournament appearances. And Barnes will deliver that for them. But we don’t know if Barnes can ever get a program to that next level because he’s never done it before. Should he fail again, you have to wonder if it’s due to him mentally wearing down his players. It also then might be worth suggesting he show a bit more positivity toward them, at least publicly.

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