The Tennessee basketball program suffered a 72-66 loss to Purdue in the Elite Eight on Sunday, and while his team got eliminated, he seemed to feel no shame about the loss, giving Purdue credit for the performance.
“There's no doubt in my. mind I think we could win a national championship,” Rick Barnes said, via Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated. “I still think that. We ran up against a team that has a chance to play on Monday.”
Barnes' Tennessee basketball team finishes the season with a 27-9 record overall. In the game, Dalton Knecht did what he was expected to do, which was do the heavy lifting. He scored 37 points, but it was not enough. Zach Edey scored 40 and grabbed 16 rebounds as well. Dalton Knecht put up more than half of Tennessee's points in the game. So did Zach Edey for Purdue.
Purdue will move on to play either Duke or NC State in the Final Four, and potentially UConn or Alabama in the championship, if it can win next Saturday. A national championship would be the cherry on top for Edey's college career.
It will be interesting to see how Tennessee follows up this trip to the Elite Eight. Barnes certainly believes in the direction that his program will give him the opportunity to win a national championship next season. It will be worth monitoring who stays and goes, whether that be in the transfer portal or to the NBA Draft.
As far as Knecht goes, he is expected to go in the middle of the first round of the NBA Draft, according to many mock drafts. So it would be surprising to see him back on the Tennessee basketball team next year. However, Barnes has a history of running a competitive program, and it is just about getting things to go his way in March now.
Rick Barnes' coaching career
Barnes has been a head coach for a long time, and the national title is what has evaded him to this point in his career.
To start his head coaching career, Barnes coached George Mason for one season in 1987-1988, leading his team to a 20-10 record, which helped him land the Providence job. He reached the NCAA Tournament three times in six seasons from 1988-1994 with Providence, and won the Big East Tournament in his final season before leaving for the Clemson job.
In four seasons at Clemson, Barnes made the tournament three times in the final three seasons he was there before taking the head coaching job at Texas.
Barnes then spent 17 years at Texas, making the NCAA Tournament in 16 of 17 years there, and making the Final Four in 2002-2003. Barnes also won the Big 12 regular season title three times. He was fired in 2015, then hired at Tennessee.
Since taking the Tennessee job, Barnes has made the NCAA Tournament in six out of his nine seasons, including the last four seasons.