Tennessee wants to get to first Final Four for Rick Barnes

Rick Barnes has had a super impressive college basketball coaching career. The 70-year-old first became a head coach at George Mason for the 1987-88 season and has run a program every year since then. Over three decades, Barnes has led Providence (six years), Clemson (four years), Texas (17 years), and Tennessee (10 years). The North Carolina native has helped all of those programs achieve some of their best years in school history.

Rick Barnes won the Big East Tournament at Providence in 1994. The head coach led Clemson to their third Sweet 16 appearance in 1997. Barnes won three Big 12 titles and had two 30-win seasons at Texas. In a decade at Tennessee, Barnes has led this program to two SEC regular-season titles, one SEC Tournament title, and four trips to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. The Vols had only seven Sweet 16 appearances in program history when Barnes arrived. Texas has only made one Sweet 16 appearance in the decade since Barnes left.

Rick Barnes is arguably the best coach in program history at Tennessee and Texas. These are both programs many in the industry consider good or very good jobs. The long-time coach has 835 career wins. This has been a Hall of Fame career.

But one box remains unchecked.

Rick Barnes has only made one Final Four appearance in 27 NCAA Tournament appearances entering the 2025 event. The head coach is only 5-8 in the second weekend. The lackluster postseason results for Barnes have been well-documented. Barnes owns a 32-28 NCAA Tournament record, but is just 6-18 against-the-spread (ATS) since 2018. There is much at stake for both him and Tennessee entering the Sweet 16 matchup against Kentucky.

Despite making the NCAA Tournament 27 times, Tennessee has never made a Final Four. The Vols own a 2-8 record in the second weekend since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. There is a lot of pressure on the No. 2 seed to finally get to the Final Four.

The Tennessee players seem to know what is on the line. The Vols are putting their coach first.

“For me and Z (Zeigler), I talked to him about it, this Final Four run and national championship run isn’t for us, it’s for him (Rick Barnes),” Tennessee wing Jahmai Mashack said after Tennessee beat UCLA in the Round of 32. “We win, we love winning, we love getting the recognition, but we want it for him most of all. And I think that’s just the main thing is trying to win every game for Coach Barnes — because he deserves more recognition than he gets.” 

"This Final Four, National Championship run, isn't for us, it's for him."

Jahmai Mashack on winning in the postseason for HC Rick Barnes. #Vols pic.twitter.com/krpikX4b5r

— Emilie Rae Cochrane (@EmCochranetv) March 23, 2025

The Tennessee program has heard the clutter. How could you not? Rick Barnes has had an outstanding run on Rocky Top but the Final Four appearance is the last thing missing from the resume. The Vols appear to feel that. That adds some more stakes to the regional semifinal meeting with Kentucky.

Could the Wildcats thwart perhaps Barnes’ last great chance to get to the Final Four and keep Tennessee’s drought alive? Or this the kind of battle the Vols have to win against their heated archnemesis to get this giant gorilla off this program’s back?

It all adds up to one outstanding Sweet 16 contest with a ton on the line in this rivalry matchup.