Rick Barnes explains the difficult aspect of NCAA tournament play

Fresh of an SEC Tournament championship, head coach Rick Barnes and the Tennessee Volunteers are preparing for an NCAA Tournament run. Controversially earning a three-seed, they will face off against the Longwood Lancers in the Round of 64 on Thursday afternoon,

Before the matchup, Barnes discussed some of the difficult aspects of playing in March Madness. He said not knowing your opponent as well as you do during conference play but thanks to the Volunteers’ run in the SEC Tournament, Barnes thinks his team will be prepared for the changing scouting reports.

“Longwood, I don’t know a lot about them right now but I do know they’re a guard-heavy team, experienced players,” Barnes said. “I know how hard it is to go through a league where you only lose one game and you win a championship. We also know how the transfer portal works too. So, every game is going to be a hard game but the scouting report in all three games this past weekend were different. I think our guys have learned how to adapt quickly but we’ll get busy with it.”

Tennessee faced off against three different teams in three days while in Tampa Bay, playing South Carolina, Kentucky, and then Texas A&M. In the NCAA Tournament, they will have an extra day to prepare for the next round, if they were to advance, compared to back to back to back games in the conference.

Playing the winner of Colorado State and Michigan, Barnes will have his coaching staff already scouting the two opponents to prepare for a potential Saturday matchup.

Rick Barnes criticizes SEC Tournament schedule

Barnes isn’t happy about the schedule between the SEC Tournament and the beginning of the Round of 64. The head coach wants to see the SEC Tournament finish on Saturday, rather than Sunday, moving forward. Some tournaments end on Saturday, but a couple still wraps up play on Sundays.

“Our guys I think have learned how to adapt to that quickly,” Barnes said of the postseason schedule. “But we’ll get busy with it (Tuesday) again. I wish our (SEC) Tournament would end on Saturday. I mean you think about it, we end on Sunday late, get back here. We were flying through the selection show, then we turn around and we get put in an early afternoon game. But that’s the way it is.

“And that’s why I wish as a league, we’d look at moving our tournament to Saturday, which will be hard to do because it’s been brought up so many times. But I think everybody in our league – I know the coaches certainly would like it to be that way.”