Looking back at UCLA's attempt to hire Rick Barnes away from Tennessee in 2019

Tennessee and UCLA have met just once on the basketball court, with the Bruins beating the Vols 103-89 on January 30, 1977 in Atlanta. The two programs had a more recent run-in off the court, though.

UCLA in April 2019 made a run at Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes — and nearly lured him away from the Vols — after firing Steve Alford.

Barnes had led Tennessee to a program-record 57 wins over the previous two seasons, matched a program record with 31 wins in the 2018-19 season and was named the Naismith Men’s College Coach of the Year after taking the Vols to a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a trip to the Sweet Sixteen. 

No. 2 Tennessee vs. No. 7 UCLA, Saturday, 9:40 p.m. ET

Now Tennessee (28-7), the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region, faces No. 7 UCLA (23-10) on Saturday (9:40 p.m. Eastern Time, TBS/TruTV) at Rupp Arena. The Vols beat No. 15 Wofford 77-62 in the first round Thursday night, before UCLA advanced with a 72-47 win over No. 10 Utah State. 

UCLA ended up hiring Mick Cronin away from Cincinnati six years ago. Cronin is 138-63 with the Bruins, winning 22 games in 2020-21, 27 in 2021-22 and 31 games in 2022-23, before going 16-17 last season. 

He took the Bruins UCLA to the Final Four in 2021, during the COVID bubble tournament in Indianapolis, then to back-to-back Sweet Sixteens in 2022 and 2023.

There was no lack of transparency from Barnes after he had agreed to a new contract with Tennessee, opting to stay with the Vols after long talks with UCLA.

He said during a press conference in Knoxville in the days after the job flirtation that he would have been the new coach at UCLA had the Bruins paid the buyout in his Tennessee contract. 

“I think I would have been the coach at UCLA (paid the buyout),” Barnes said. “I really felt at that time that that’s what would have happened … I asked God for total clarity, and when they came back with their decision, I knew that I’m not supposed to be the coach at UCLA.

“As soon as that happened, I’m like, ‘OK, I’m good with this,’ because I felt like, again, that God had made it crystal clear that I needed to be at the University of Tennessee.”

After going 31-35 during his first two seasons at Tennessee, Barnes quickly put the Vols back on the national stage with a 26-win season in 2017-18, winning a share of the SEC regular-season championship, and followed it with the 31-6 season in 2018-19, which included a program record 19-game win streak and four weeks ranked No. 1, setting another program record at the time.

The Vols lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 3 seed in 2018, falling to Final Four-bound and 11th-seeded Loyola Chicago, then lost to No. 3 Purdue in overtime in the Sweet 16 in 2019.

“We’ve been through a lot of change,” then-Tennessee athletics director Phillip Fulmer said at the time. “We weren’t going to let somebody come in here and buy our coach without putting up a great fight. I think it makes a statement for our programs.

“… We’re in this to compete for championships at the conference and national level. We had a really outstanding, proven person and we weren’t going to just let him go away.”

Vols have won 106 games over last four seasons

Since 2019, Barnes has taken Tennessee to an Elite Eight and Sweet Sixteen. The Vols have won 106 games over the last four seasons, with 27 wins in 2021, 25 wins in 2023, 27 wins last season and now 28 and counting this season. 

Six years ago Barnes said he was ready to get back to work at Tennessee, building on the early success the Vols had already had. 

“We’re going to move forward and we’re going to continue to work as hard as we can to take this program to another level where we’re consistently considered one of the best basketball programs in the country,” Barnes said. 

“To do that, we need everybody to buy in knowing if we all do our jobs, everybody’s going to have a chance to have opportunities they might not even expect, but it’s all a byproduct of success.”