Nichols: In Rick Barnes’ Return to Texas, Vols’ Inconsistency Weaves Familiar Narrative

All week long, Texas’ reiterating message was obvious: We love Rick Barnes. We thank Rick Barnes. We are excited to see Rick Barnes. Through T-shirts, banners,

All week long, Texas’ reiterating message was obvious: We love Rick Barnes. We thank Rick Barnes. We are excited to see Rick Barnes.

Through T-shirts, banners, applause, a pregame video and even a special edition of the “Fireside Chat” with Texas coach Chris Beard, this message remained prominent.

And for anyone looking at the surface-level approach, these messages stemmed from a place of class and respect for Barnes — who led the Longhorns for 17 seasons before departing for Tennessee.

But, as anyone listening to Barnes last Friday would assume, those messages were not just a good-natured welcome.

Instead, at least to yours truly, they came off as an attempt to brush over what really happened — which is that Texas fired Barnes and tried to convince him to stage it as a mutual parting before he left for Knoxville.

“I had told our players (at Texas) so many times about not quitting that that I didn't think I could quit and just say that I was leaving because that's not how I felt,” Barnes said before his team left for Austin. “My time was up and they needed to tell me that it was up because I didn't want my players to ever say to me, 'Coach, why would you quit?'. That was important to me.

“To be honest, they wanted to have one of those really fun press conferences at the end where everyone sits up there and acts like it's a mutual parting of ways, and I said that I wasn't having any part of that. Mack (Brown) told me later that he wishes he would have done the same thing. So I felt good about that because that's just the way it happened. I've said it before, I think God is in control of all of this and I think He had plans for me to be here.”

Now, does that mean Barnes didn’t cherish his trip back to Austin? No.

He reiterated what it meant Saturday, especially seeing his former players and having his grandson on the Tennessee bench, and emphasized his appreciation for the Longhorns’ welcome.

But that still doesn’t erase what originally happened to Texas’ all-time wins leader, or what Barnes has proved since leaving that press conference for Knoxville in 2015.

Since taking over at Tennessee seven years ago, Barnes has revitalized a Vols program that sunk lower and lower in the post-Bruce Pearl era (which featured a couple games against Barnes, in case you forgot).

Granted, Barnes’ postseason struggles have remained — his sole Final Four appearance came in 2003 when the Longhorns had T.J. Ford, and his best Vols teams have fallen well short of expectation — but his better-than-average results at Tennessee have generally kept fans pacified in a place where SEC football reigns supreme.

The pacifiers go flying, though, on days like Saturday.

And not just because of Barnes, even though he still can’t cobble together a roster full of blue-chip recruits, veteran talent and the occasional no-name-turned-superstar.

But because Tennessee, as short-lived as its program history and tradition may be in the big, wide world of college basketball, still gave itself a late, stubborn, impressive shot against the Longhorns — only for simple mistakes and hideous inconsistencies to rip a seemingly easy win from their fingertips.

Trailing by 17 with 7:57 left, Tennessee had only scored seven points in the first 12 minutes and three seconds of the second half.

Suddenly, though, Zakai Zeigler hit an ice-breaking shot to get the Vols going.

They didn’t stop scoring for the rest of the half.

Fueled by a 19-2 run, Tennessee held Texas to a 5:03 scoring drought and forced six turnovers in 7:28 — a choking defense that finally seemed to have an offense to go with it.

Zeigler and James combined for 15 of those points, and Austin native Victor Bailey, Jr. provided a fitting put-back to tie the game at 51 with 1:01 left.

"I was just a guy that made shots, but I feel like anybody on the team could have done the same exact thing by just attacking," Zeigler said.

Timmy Allen broke the stalemate with a free-throw after a questionable foul call, leaving time for Tennessee to run one more play with 6.2 seconds remaining.

Given that Zeigler had scored seven straight points during UT’s ferocious comeback, one would think he would have taken the last shot.

Instead, the freshman — who took the floor in that moment instead of Chandler, which seems worthwhile — drove the lane, spun and fired to a wide-open James.

James clanged a 3-pointer off the back iron at the buzzer, and that was that.

But this game, like so many Tennessee losses, comes down to so much more than the final play.

8-for-16 at the free-throw line.

7-for-17 on layups.

Four shot-clock violations.

A half-court foul at the halftime buzzer for the second time in less than a month, allowing for two easy free-throws that marked the difference in a win and a loss.

Improve on any of those simple tasks, and you have a win in the bag.

Let’s also not forget Tennessee’s general inability to create any consistent offensive flow outside Santiago Vescovi, who was held to 1-of-8 shooting in a masterful scouting job from Texas.

In short, this game stoked the exciting thought of Zakai Zeigler’s future, while reinforcing concerns about, well, pretty much everything else.

Was this game an essential win? Not at all, though it would have been a nice résumé boost against a good team and future conference foe in a tough environment.

Asking that question doesn’t erase the Vols’ shortcomings, though.

Instead, it emphasizes the quickness with which they must fix the issues that popped up again in Austin, lest they suffer more in-conference losses in more crucial times this year.

And if those losses do pile up, or this team’s lack of chemistry drives it to a short postseason, then the player-led inconsistency narrative won’t be the only one you hear around this program.

Instead, you may hear what’s quietly built up around Knoxville in March for a couple years now: the rumble of still unsatisfied Vols fans, who would use Barnes’ good-but-not-great résumé to try and leverage the same result that Texas has tried to brush over since this game was announced.