Rick Barnes: Buzz Williams 'absolutely' should have been given technical after running on court
Rick Barnes said Monday night that Tennessee basketball is working on a new drill in practice before playing at Arkansas Wednesday night at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville. If an opposing coach runs on the floor during a game to call a timeout, don’t run around him, run over him.
“Anytime you see a coach on the floor,” Barnes said during his appearance Monday night on The Vol Network’s Vol Calls, “you got to run over him. You got to hit him.”
Barnes was joking during the weekly Tennessee coaches radio show while making reference to Texas A&M Buzz Williams, who on Saturday night ran wildly onto the court waving his arms and jumping up and down to get a timeout called.
How is that not a technical on Buzz Williams?? Ran all the way onto the court! pic.twitter.com/oqlbnxgkcV
— Rick Nyman (@RickNymanSport) February 11, 2024
Williams finally got the timeout called after reaching the center of the court, running between players from both teams. He wasn’t given a technical for leaving the bench area, but was given a coaches box warning during the timeout.
Barnes wasn’t happy with the no call, saying Monday night it “absolutely” should have been a technical foul called on Williams.
“Absolutely, 100%,” Barnes said. “Absolutely should have been at technical foul … but that was a ridiculous play for them not to (assess a technical foul).”
‘A player could have run into him … Tobe (Awaka) almost did. He avoided him.’
It happened with 6:02 left in the second half at Reed Arena.
Tennessee got a 3-pointer from Zakai Zeigler to cut the Texas A&M lead down to 12 points — the Aggies led by as many as 22 earlier in the half, on their way to an 85-69 win — then Texas A&M’s Jace Carter answered with a 3-pointer of his own.
That’s when Williams signaled timeout, eventually running to the middle of the court to get the timeout called.
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“He was in the jump circle,” Barnes said of Williams. “And the thing is, a player could have run into him … Tobe (Awaka) almost did. He avoided him.”
“That’s a blatant technical foul,” Barnes added. “And you got to call it. And they just said they would take care of it, but they’d already been warned being out of the (coaches) box, all kind of things. And it’s just a missed call.”
Up Next: No. 9 Tennessee at Arkansas, Wednesday, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN2
Barnes took a timeout with 11 seconds left in the game despite Tennessee trailing by 17 points at the time. He wanted to continue his conversation with Pat Adams, the official Barnes argued with after Williams ran on the floor.
“That last time out could have gone a lot of different ways based on how (Adams) responded to it,” Barnes said. “And we had a gentleman talk right there. But if it had gone any other way, I probably wouldn’t have been there for the last couple seconds.”
Barnes was asked during the radio appearance what can be done about the no-call in that situation moving forward. He said Mike Eades, the Southeastern Conference’s coordinator of men’s basketball officials “has handled it.”
“Mike Eades is the very best in the business,” Barnes said. “He’s our supervisor of official. And believe me, he has handled it. I guarantee it has been done with his staff. There’s no doubt that he was on it right away.”
