Tennessee basketball: Mike Schwartz will be Rick Barnes’ toughest assistant coach to replace
Losing assistant coaches is nothing new to a veteran like Rick Barnes. He’s lost five with Tennessee basketball alone. If you do your job right, you’re naturally going to lose members of your staff to head coaching jobs elsewhere over time.
Barnes lost Chris Ogden to the Texas Tech Red Raiders as an assistant in 2016. Ogden became the UT Arlington Mavericks’ head coach in 2017. Then Bares lost Rob Lanier, Desmond Oliver and Kim English directly to head coaching jobs with the Georgia State Panthers in 2019, ETSU Bucs in 2021 and George Mason Patriots in 2021 respectively.
However, he’s now about to suffer his toughest loss yet. Mike Schwartz, who replaced Ogden with Tennessee basketball in 2016, is now leaving to take over the head coaching job of the East Carolina Pirates. Stephen Igoe of 247Sports broke the news on Twitter Monday night.
SOURCES: Tennessee associate head coach Michael Schwartz has agreed to be the next head basketball coach at East Carolina, pending board of trustees approval on Wednesday.
— Stephen Igoe (@StephenIgoe) March 14, 2022
There are two reasons Schwartz is Barnes’ toughest loss. The first is longevity on Rocky Top. Similar to Oliver in 2021, Schwartz has spent a while with Barnes on Rocky Top. He was part of the program rebuild from 2016 to now, becoming Barnes’ top assistant in 2019.
Longevity isn’t the only reason he’s the Vols’ toughest loss, though. Schwartz’s speciality is what makes him hard to replace. Over the past few years but particularly this year, Schwartz has been the assistant most focused on developing Tennessee basketball’s defense.
It’s no secret that defense is why the Vols won the SEC Tournament and are such a high seed in the NCAA Tournament. Sure, they have lots of guys who can shoot, and they have star power, but their biggest strength is being able to contest every shot that’s put up.
UT’s defense didn’t dominate by forcing turnovers all year. They just managed to force lots of misses. There’s a reason the Kentucky Wildcats shot uncharacteristically bad fro three in the SEC Tournament semifinal matchup between these two, and there’s also a reason the Texas A&M Aggies’ red-hot shooting ran out.
Josiah-Jordan James has blossomed into one of the best defenders in basketball thanks to Schwartz’s coaching. Before him, Yves Pons had developed into a superstar defender for Rocky Top. Kyle Alexander made the NBA off of his defensive prowess.
Everywhere you look, at every position, Schwartz has been able to make stars out of players by developing them defensively. He’s also the mastermind behind the team defense the Vols play. All of this has made him extremely valuable to the program.
Longtime coaches like Barnes often times see their best success dependent on elite staff members. UT and Barnes both broke their conference tournament drought this year, and it happens to be with Schwartz on Barnes’ staff.
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As a result, replacing him will be a huge priority for Tennessee basketball. The good news for Rocky Top is Schwartz will likely remain with the Vols through the NCAA Tournament, and this may be their best shot at a national title, but they’ve got to figure out how to move on without him in the future. That’ll be tough.