Tennessee basketball: Vols’ Kentucky loss hurts Rick Barnes’s big-game reputation

It’s no surprise Tennessee basketball lost to the Kentucky Wildcats. However, it brings back questions of Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes in big games.

I will admit, I had my doubts going into the game Saturday night. With LSU beating Kentucky, Tennessee basketball was on its way to a rough night. The Wildcats have not lost two consecutive home matches in Rupp Arena in a long time. But this game had upset written all over it before it even started. The reason? Rick Barnes.

Vols fans have experienced many painful losses. Most recently, losing to Loyola-Chicago in the Round of 32 in a buzzer beater was heartbreaking for Rocky Top. It was also one loss I was expecting could happen. Why? Again, Rick Barnes.

Now, Tennessee has had plenty of games in the Rick Barnes era where they have dominated other teams. However, if there is one thing that fans forget about Rick Barnes is that he struggles in big-time games. And there is evidence to prove it.

There was a reason why Texas let Rick Barnes go. While he did great during the regular season and had great teams, Barnes could never win the big one. We see precisely what Texas fans tried warning Vol Nation about when they hired him.

Despite numerous great wins over highly ranked teams, Barnes actually has a losing record in his career at 13-17 when his team is in the top 10 and facing another team in the top 10. When he is in match-up involving two top 5 teams, he is 1-4. It’s one thing to beat highly ranked teams. It’s another to beat them when your own team is highly ranked and coming in with expectations.

Then there’s postseason play. There’s a reason Barnes never won a Big 12 tournament in 17 years with the Texas Longhorns. In fact, in 31 years of coaching, he has one conference tournament championship ever: in 1994 with the Providence Friars.

It’s even worse in the NCAA Tournament. Barnes lost to a lower seed in the Big Dance in nine of his 16 appearances with Texas. The same thing happened to his first Vols team in their loss to Loyola-Chicago last year. Even in his Final Four run, his team was a No. 1 seed and lost to a No. 3 seed. And don’t forget that he hasn’t been out of the first weekend of the tournament since 2008.

Now again, this loss doesn’t surprise me because of the caliber of team Tennessee basketball played. Kentucky has a great team. But this loss also doesn’t surprise me with how dreadful they played all night.

The offensive game was not clicking, the defense looked lost, and the team was not in sync. Where does the responsibility of all of this come into play? You guessed it! Rick Barnes.

We may have seen the peak of the Vols. They are very talented. But maybe the experts are right; they’re not as good as advertised. This game clearly showed.

Tennessee’s schedule has seen eight teams with current losing records. It has only played three ranked teams. With this loss, the Vols are now 2-2 against Top 25 teams and 1-2 against teams in the top 25 when they played them. This series of failures tell us something is not right.

We will see what the Vols and Rick Barnes will bring coming up next weekend. But honestly, this might be just the start of some ugly losses headed their way, especially when you look at their level of competition so far.

But there is one thing Tennessee basketball can take as a positive from this game. They will have it in the back of their minds and can clean up the mistakes from this loss. Barnes is a very talented coach. If he wants to prove his one of the elite basketball coaches of college basketball, his teams must win the big games. Pure, clear, and simple.