Rick Barnes downplays Kentucky's struggles; "You can throw all of that out"

Rick Barnes is officially playing nice ahead of tomorrow’s game vs. Kentucky. Yesterday, the head coach of the No. 5 Tennessee Volunteers echoed his comments from earlier this week in saying that Kentucky’s struggles to this point don’t matter because John Calipari will have the Wildcats ready to go tomorrow in Knoxville.

“What I know is the respect I have for John Calipari and his program,” Barnes said of what’s seen from Kentucky. “What he’s meant not only to the University of Kentucky but to college basketball in general. When you think of his teams, all I know is they always get better. Always. I don’t care what has happened up to this point with either the University of Kentucky or the University of Tennessee. You can throw all of that out. It’s going to be a game where both teams are going to play hard, going to try to get better. So we’re going to have to be ready to play.”

This morning, Kentucky’s associate to the head coach Bruiser Flint told reporters that Cason Wallace (back) and Jacob Toppin (shoulder) are questionable for tomorrow’s game. In previewing the Wildcats (and, it sounds like, defending his old friend), Barnes mentioned those injuries as one reason the Cats haven’t reached their full potential yet.

“You go back and look, like a lot of teams in college basketball, they’ve had injuries they’re dealing with. I’m not sure he’s had his whole team together all year. One thing I do know is his teams always play better and play their best basketball late in the year. Hope that people can say the same thing about us, that we’re going to get better and we’re still going to play our best basketball later on.”

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Barnes on Cason Wallace, Kentucky’s struggles in Knoxville

Wallace exited the South Carolina game nine minutes in with back spasms. As someone who recruited him, Barnes raved about the combo guard, who is averaging 11.6 points, 3.7 assists, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.1 steals in 31 minutes per game.

“Cason is a terrific player,” Barnes said. “I think what Cason has done, he’s gone in there, he’s learned the program, he’s learned the system. His role’s probably changed a little bit from where he started. But that’s part of the coaching part of it, where, you are more around players, you learn more about them and they learn more about what you need them to do. Cason has done a little bit of all of that for them. A guy that, again, he can do a lot of things on both ends of the court.”

As we’re all well too aware, Rick Barnes has been particularly successful against Calipari while wearing Tennessee orange, going 10-7, 6-3 in their last nine matchups. Kentucky is 2-5 vs. Tennessee in Knoxville since Barnes took over in the 2015-16 season. The Cats have been dreadful on the road this season, going 0-3 in true road games (Gonzaga, Missouri, and Alabama). Even then, Barnes went to bat for his old friend.

“One, I think you’ve got to give Kentucky a lot of credit for when they go on the road,” Barnes said when asked about Tennessee’s edge over Kentucky in Thompson-Boling. “They’ve had great success in that program. Certainly, since John has been there, he’s taken it to a different level, where people expect.

“It’s like one of those basketball programs that, wherever they go, people want to come see them play. Your fans get excited. I think most would say you’re envious of that, you want that. We want that wherever we go. We want to build it. But it takes a long, long time over many, many years, which Kentucky has been successful in basketball, you go back, what, the 1940s, 50s, I don’t think there’s a decade they haven’t had great success. So it’s a compliment to the people that have coached there, that have not only carried that one but improved it. I can tell you, John Calipari has improved it as much as any coach they’ve ever had.”

Good on Barnes for saying all the right things, but as we look ahead to what could be a brutal game, this feels like snake-charming.