Friday afternoon, Tennessee coach Rick Barnes was in the middle of explaining to Hoops HQ why, in 2019, he didn’t become coach at UCLA when he turned a corner in a Rupp Arena hallway and ran into the man who did — Mick Cronin.
The two men embraced and exchanged pleasantries. Then Barnes looked over at a reporter and said to Cronin, “I was just telling him they hired the right guy.”
It’s funny how the NCAA Tournament bracket sometimes sets up games like the one Saturday night between Tennessee, the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Regional, and No. 7 seed UCLA. Or Saturday’s South Regional matchup between two former Kentucky coaches — Rick Pitino of St. John’s and John Calipari of Arkansas. The NCAA selection committee insists they’re merely coincidental and says, correctly, that before some of them can even take place, teams have to survive and advance past a round or two.
The Tennessee-UCLA game is the perfect occasion to revisit the time the Rick Barnes era in Knoxville nearly ended just as it was getting going. In the 2019 NCAA Tournament, the Vols were a blown, last-second defensive play away from beating Purdue for a spot in the Elite Eight. And UCLA, after firing Steve Alford, needed a coach. It didn’t take long before talks between UCLA and Barnes got serious.
“It was probably closer than a lot of people might have thought,” Barnes says.
As it turned out, Barnes’ buyout at Tennessee proved too rich even for UCLA’s blue blood. And even if the school was inclined to pay, Tennessee’s chancellor was willing to pay Barnes whatever it took to keep him.
In the end, Barnes insists money had nothing to do with his decision.
“I think God’s in charge of everything,” Barnes says. “He’s written the script. I’m thankful I had some leadership at Tennessee that appreciated the program and where we were heading. I had some good friends around me that prayed with me, and my family was with me every step of the way. It was close, but yet in the end, God made it clear he wasn’t finished with us in Tennessee.”
Barnes’ decision to stay in Knoxville and UCLA’s decision to hire Cronin has worked out well for both. Barnes has turned the Vols into a perennial SEC championship contender and NCAA Tournament team. Cronin’s Bruins played in the 2021 Final Four and have reached the Sweet 16 twice in his six seasons. The Bruins have a chance to add to that Sweet 16 total Saturday — if they can get past Tennessee.
Cronin says that won’t be easy.
“The reason they’re hard to prepare for is it’s hard to simulate their intensity,” Cronin said. “You can run through your offense and it’s easy until you got to try to run your offense against a team with two of the best (defenders). Not only do you have a great coach who is a great defensive coach, but I’ve been doing this a long time. Your defense gets better when you have two of the best defenders (guards Zakai Zeigler, a 5-foot-9 senior, and Jahmai Mashack, a 6-foot-4 senior) in the country.
Zakai Zeigler Directs Tennessee to a First-Round Win over Wofford
“I feel blessed for all that’s come my way, and I’m thankful Coach Barnes saw something in me,” said Ziegler
“And now we haven’t even mentioned (6-foot-11 junior) Felix Okpara and his shot-blocking. So their personnel to go with their system is why they’re such a great defensive team. That’s why they’re so hard to prepare for. Your stuff tends to work against certain teams, it doesn’t work against them.”
Barnes has watched a lot of tape of UCLA in the last 24 hours, but he’s long been familiar with Cronin and the way he operates his programs.
“Mick’s teams always defend, they’re very good ball-pressure teams, very active in the gaps, really good hands,” Barnes said. “They know how they want to play. They’re going to have a really good balanced inside-out game. They know who they are; they know what they’re looking for. They are just an extremely sound, fundamental team.”
