Rick Barnes to Jeremy Pruitt: Tennessee Vols 10 notable 2010s coaching hires

In hindsight, this clearly has not worked out. But Holly Warlick at the time made sense and, without the benefit of hindsight, is one of the best hires the Tennessee Vols made this decade. Nobody can blame Dave Hart for what happened.

If you could design the perfect hire who had everything but head coaching experience, that hire would be Warlick. She was the Tennessee Lady Vols’ first All-American player. For 30 years, she was Pat Summitt’s top assistant. Women’s basketball never won a national title without Warlick on the bench.

So when demential forced Summitt to step down at the end of the 2011-2012 season, there was no hire in the world who would have been better on paper than Warlick. She had all but coached them anyway the year before as they reached the Elite Eight. Honestly, what more could you ask for in this hire?

The worst part of this, in fact, is that Warlick was grossly underpaid. There was never a more qualified person for the job, so Hart should have offered her more money. However, the school was in serious financial trouble at the time. Still, Warlick did win three SEC Championships her first three years on Rocky Top, so the transition seemed to go smoothly.

Her last four years, however, saw the team get progressively worse. So after this year, Phillip Fulmer had to move the program in a different direction. But that doesn’t change the fact that Warlick was the most qualified person for the job at the time in 2012, so that’s why we have this Tennessee Vols hire so high.