Tennessee basketball has been a solid team throughout the years, and though you can give credit to the players, the coaching is what brings everything together. Head coach Rick Barnes has been around the game for a long time, and he has the proof after this latest accomplishment.
Barnes recently passed Bob Knight on the all-time games coached list. When asked about the accomplishment, he had nothing but good things to say about Knight, and also had a few stories to share about him.
“I'm blessed to have a chance to coach against him,” Barnes said. “When I got in the business, I told everybody two coaches I studied the most were him and Dean Smith. I was blessed at the end of my career to get to coach against him, and I will tell you, we do something in every game from one of those guys. We did it tonight, ever since I've known him and played against him, I've always taken something from those guys, and we used it tonigt.”
Rick Barnes coached his 1,274th career game tonight, passing Bob Knight for tenth all-time.
Never one to talk about his accomplishments, I didn't think I'd get much of an answer out of Rick about it. I was wrong. pic.twitter.com/qJtsZzbbQc
— John Sartori (@JohnSartoriTV) January 7, 2026
It's no surprise that Barnes uses some of the stuff that he learned from Knight, and it's still succesful to this day. In 10 years, Barnes has had Tennessee playing at a high level, and that shouldn't change anytime soon.
Tennessee is currently 11-4, and as conference play starts, it will be important for them to continue to play well on both sides of the ball. Barnes will have them ready for any challenge, just like he has the past decade.
