... or lose by 20+. Barnes is a decent coach, but had a period in which he was way overrated by many... including here. A return to the mean was inevitable.
Barnes has been in Knoxville the same amount of seasons Mike White has been at UF. During that time, UT has three NCAA appearances with one Sweet 16, one round of 32 and one first round loss (last season). White has actually had more Tournament appearances (four) with better results (an Elite 8 and never losing in the first round) and also has more regular season and SEC wins than Barnes. Not saying Barnes is a bad coach because he is not and he has another talented team this season. But sometimes we need to compare guys perceived by many as really good coaches to the guy we have for some perspective.
In addition to the NCAA Tourney appearances, Tennessee & Barnes had also won a share of the 2018 SEC title along with Auburn. That is something White had not done during his tenure at Florida. 2017-18 Southeastern Conference Season Summary | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com In the last three out of four seasons, Tennessee had also finished higher than Florida in the final SEC standings. I know that doing well in the NCAA Tournament is important to a basketball program but so is doing well in your conference (i.e, winning titles) and being considered as the best team in the SEC. That was something Florida had not achieve since that great 2014 season when the Gators were the overall #1 seed in the NCAAs. ====================================================== I would hate to wait another 20-25 years or more before Florida can win another SEC crown which is what had happened to the following schools that had won the SEC recently: Alabama(2021) - last reg. season title (2002, 1986); last sec-tourney title(1991) LSU(2019) - last reg. season title (2009, 2006, 2000); last sec-tourney title(1980) Tennessee(2018) - last reg. season title (2002); last sec-tourney title(1979) Auburn(2018; 2019 sec tourney) - last reg. season title (1999, 1960); last sec-tourney title(1985) Arkansas - last reg. season title (1994); last sec-tourney title(2000) Florida - last reg. season title (2014); last sec-tourney title(2014) Kentucky - last reg. season title (2020); last sec-tourney title(2018)
I somewhat agree with this, but it seems like you are assigning equal or similar importance to NCAA Tournament success and final SEC standing. People hit me with negative ratings for stating this, but the NCAA Tournament trumps all, and by a significant margin. The conference championships are a great piece of hardware and it should be a goal of every program, but THE goal is to make it into the NCAA Tournament and win a National Championship. Nobody ever says well, Duke won the National Championship but it means less because UNC won the ACC Championship. In the same vein, nobody would say, well UNC won the ACC so it doesn't matter that they lost the National Championship.
