Will it be Rick Barnes this time around?

 

Despite the warning by BJD95 in his “Tin Foil Hat” theory, and despite the fact that every indication suggests the wholly competent Debbie Yow is keeping the usual insiders out of the loop this time around, Saturday’s rumor mill is churning: SFN community member, ‘Strutter’ posted on the forums today that an offer has been made to Texas’ Rick Barnes.

Maybe it’s a smokescreen and there’s no merit to it whatsoever (which is what I happen to believe), but as a charter member of the Lunatic Fringe, I don’t see any harm in getting excited talking about our next coach, especially if it could be Rick Barnes.

The case for Barnes isn’t necessarily quantitative, and it may seem quite mysterious — at the very least, strange — that such a resounding folklore surrounds a guy that didn’t go to State, has never coached at State, and has, at best, only loose connections to State.

As a pragmatist, it bothers me that the numbers –- through today he has a career record of 524-256 (.672) and he’s coaching in his 16th consecutive NCAA Tournament and the 19th of his 23 years as a head coach –- are peripheral to the idea of Rick Barnes at N.C. State.

Our fascination with Barnes –- mine, anyway –- stretches back to his first season at Clemson, when he took over a program in shambles and immediately challenged the conference’s long-established paradigm. Duke and Carolina might always reign as the ACC’s elite and most-favored, but during his four seasons in the league, Barnes promoted aggressiveness over finesse with the explicit intent of making it hard on them both every time they played Clemson. This endeared him to State fans, so when he went to Texas in 1998, many of us expected his time in Austin would be short and that he’d be back in the ACC –-in Raleigh -– after the 2001 season. But those were the early days of Lee Fowler’s burgeoning ineptitude, so we waited for our next opportunity, which came during the rollercoaster, tail-number-tracking days of early April 2006. But, by then, Fowler’s utter incompetence reigned supreme, and Barnes remained at Texas.

Yet, somehow, the idea never died, which doesn’t really add up. Besides being a Hickory native, Barnes’ only solid connection to State is that he was an assistant at Davidson under former State star Eddie Biedenbach. So, yeah, it seems downright arrogant for the fans of this once proud, storied program to have built such folklore on the premise that being Head Basketball Coach at North Carolina State University has always been Barnes’ dream job.

Still, many of us know that we were thisclose in 2006, and appreciate that the main roadblock then won’t be a factor in 2011. But five long years have passed, and it’s entirely plausible that Barnes has no interest this time around; and even if he does, it’s not a done deal.

Considering Barnes is currently one of college basketball’s highest-paid coaches, with an annual salary of $2 million, and knowing it’s likely that Texas, with its rich coffers, would make a counteroffer to keep him, it could require a deal that exceeds our financial capabilities. However, according to the El Paso Times, Barnes doesn’t have a buyout penalty clause in his contract (link). Now, it would be purely speculative to suggest this was intentional during his re-negotiations in April 2006, but it does seem awfully convenient that the he left the door open for when new management took over at State. See what I did there?

Moreover, it’s not unreasonable to expect that, at 56 years old and nearing the end of his 23rd season, Barnes may no longer have the passion, or the energy, to rebuild a struggling program where the fan base expects, at the very least, to perennially make the NCAA Tournament and challenge for the ACC title. Barnes hinted as much in April 2007, when his name was mentioned for the Kentucky job, just one year after turning down State. John Feinstein wrote in the Washington Post (link):

“I think I have one of the five best jobs in the country,” Barnes said last week. “We can recruit in Texas and we can recruit nationally. We’re good enough to contend nationally. And if we lose in the second round of the tournament…the whole state isn’t crying for my head.”

That’s because they’re already focused on spring football.

Now, maybe you see a guy that’s become content, settled into his comfort zone, but all I heard was that Texas Basketball is all hat and no cattle. It’s arguable that taking over State towards the end of his career would be different than others because the infrastructure for success is already in place — rejuvenating even, perhaps.

Maybe the Texas job has become stale to Barnes? Just recently, as reported by the NY Times (link):

With his squad in a late-season tailspin, questions about Barnes’s shaky history of coaching in the N.C.A.A. tournament are being revived.

“I would have cared 10 years ago,” he said of critics questioning his 19-18 N.C.A.A. tournament record. “This is not the most important thing in my life. It’s what I do, but it’s not the most important thing in my life.”

By no means would Barnes avoid this type of criticism on Tobacco Road, but it’s not unreasonable to see in his comments a successful coach that may no longer feel appreciated.

“I don’t care,” Barnes said late Tuesday of the criticism. “I’ve been in this so long, I could care less about what other people think. I quit a long time ago worrying about that.”

So maybe he wasn’t interested in Kentucky in 2007 because he still has sights on finishing his career where he always wanted to be: in his home state? Barnes has made comments over the years that suggest his fondness for coaching in the ACC, particularly on Tobacco Road. Before the 2009 NCAA Tournament Duke-Texas second round game in Greensboro, Ed Hardin of the Greensboro News & Record wrote the following (link):

Rick Barnes of Texas has watched it from various angles through the years, from his younger days in Hickory to his coaching days at Clemson and now with Texas. And if not for twists of fate here and there, Barnes might still be here. Unlike many coaches across the country who have, shall we say, mixed emotions about Tobacco Road basketball, Barnes has always looked at it with wonder.

His goal was to coach in the ACC, and probably one of the North Carolina schools, though he’s never quite said that.

“Obviously, where I grew up, that was my goal, to coach in the ACC,” he said Friday on the eve of the second-round game between Texas and Duke.

Now, it’s easy to read as much or as little into that comment as you’d like, but knowing his volatile history with both Duke and Carolina, it’s certainly plausible to believe that desire was limited — at least after his stint at Clemson — to either State or Wake. And with the right offer he likely could have gone to Wake Forest last spring, so it’s no stretch then to suggest he has probably long-considered the State job enticing. Hardin continues:

How his career path took him to Texas and not to Durham or Raleigh or Winston-Salem is a long story, but he’s destined to slip in and out of the state’s basketball lore until he retires.

That’s the appeal of basketball in North Carolina, something that becomes larger than life to some, requiring life-long allegiances and grudges that never go away.

For State fans, the idea of Rick Barnes itself has become “larger than life.” But it’s simply our response to all those folks –- [cough] Brando, Gminski, Patrick, Katz, Davis, Parrish [cough] -– who think we should just accept our rightful place in Tobacco Road’s hierarchy and leave those “occassional” Glory Days in the past, where they belong. Moreover, the idea itself is transcendent of our collective personality: Barnes wouldn’t back down to the ACC Royalty while at Clemson, so there’s no reason to suggest he would do so at lowly N.C. State.

Look, we can all agree that while he isn’t the best coach in the nation –- he’s certainly Top 10 of all active coaches –- he’s a proven winner, and he’s one of only a few coaches that can say yes and bring not only instant credibility to the program, but more importantly, immediately inspire and unify this weary fan base.

Why shouldn’t we have the same expectations as Duke and Carolina — or for that matter, Kentucky or UCLA or Michigan State? Just because we’ve suffered national irrelevance for two decades doesn’t mean we have to like it. That’s the attitude we project by going after Rick Barnes again. Maybe we missed our opportunity in 2006; maybe this job has never been anything more than our dream for him and he’s not interested this time around, either. That’s fine; I trust Debbie Yow has the search under control, and we’ll never hear much about it if so.

But what do we lose by going after one of the best?

The popular — albeit tired and ignorant — myth is that no one reputable will want the State job. But intelligent folks with an appreciation for not only ACC but college basketball history (like Al Featherston), and especially those of us that don’t need the NC in front of State, know that dog won’t hunt. We know this is a great job with all the resources — facilities, fan base support, TV exposure — to succeed. And surely Barnes knows that hanging that first banner in almost two-and-a-half decades would secure his place as the next N.C. State legend.

And then, who knows, in a few years turn it over to someone like, say, Sean Miller.

Remember that this coaching search, the NCAA Tournament, and other issues are being discussed on the SFN Forums.

About LRM

Charter member of the Lunatic Fringe and a fan, loyal to a fault.

AD & Department Coaching Carousel College Basketball Debbie Yow NCS Basketball

142 Responses to Will it be Rick Barnes this time around?

  1. mak4dpak 03/20/2011 at 11:33 AM #

    Forgot to again mention that Saint Marys has one the nations top offenses, and split the regualar season with Gonzaga, while winning the WAC regular season. Did Jimmy V come from a big name school? Iona?

  2. buclark 03/20/2011 at 11:34 AM #

    hickoryhound, I enjoyed your post. I think I am corect about this but I could be wrong. I thought when coach V was terminated that we had an interim chancellor who wanted to no longer be “interim” and that the UNC “powers that were” in the UNC system wanted coach V gone because he was giving DS fits. I always thought the Wolfpack family would have hung with JV, especially with the attitude of “since I was part of the problem, I want to be part of the solution”. I keep telling people this and would like to know if it is true. I may continue to spread the word anyway. It sounds a lot better than if the Wolfpack family just threw a great man under the bus.

  3. gashousepack 03/20/2011 at 11:37 AM #

    Does anybody think that the Barnes and Donovan talk is the smokescreen for Miller?

  4. Lunatic Fringe 03/20/2011 at 11:58 AM #

    Personally – it is probably going to be a game time decision on who I pull for in Texas/Arizona game. I like both guys and I am not sure which one would be the easiest for us to get.

  5. eas 03/20/2011 at 12:16 PM #

    He signed a new contract last year and has a big buy out.

  6. Gowolves 03/20/2011 at 12:17 PM #

    I had the wrong name. My bad. Don’t know why I had that name in my head.

  7. Wolfy__79 03/20/2011 at 12:56 PM #

    Stevens is a good looking young coach.. i don’t want to get too high on him b/c of his success in the ncaas but it’s pretty hard. his teams to get out there an compete their butts off. i can only say if i were butler, i would chain him to the most grandioso package as possible.. which from reading earlier sounds like that’s happened already. it will be interesting to see if he is another coach k in the making.

    as the tourney moves forward.. stevens, donovan, barnes and miller are my front runners.. not in that particular order. the timing is now or never for these coaches.. well imo. i cannot wait until i hear the hire!!

  8. ncsukyle 03/20/2011 at 1:09 PM #

    Lorenzo Romar? Anybody? Anybody?

  9. Boyd 03/20/2011 at 1:19 PM #

    eas,

    If you’re talking about Miller, his buy out is only $500k.

  10. eas 03/20/2011 at 1:21 PM #

    Boyd, I was talking about Romar. I am glad Miller is lower as well.

  11. Wolfy__79 03/20/2011 at 2:31 PM #

    haha… in conversation with my dad the other day.. he revealed something adventuroo did in his post that i wasn’t aware of at the time..

    i nearly s%$t my pants when he told me valvano flew to sc instead of nc! lol! that is so crazy..

  12. Wolfy__79 03/20/2011 at 2:41 PM #

    i could not agree with you more triadwolf! our players, don’t get me wrong i think they are great young men.., are way out of shape. they are only in shape for street ball. tracy looks to be atleast 25lbs too heavy.. which doesn’t help his knee issue if not caused it. howell, he’s too heavy in the wrong way and goes up to softly. painter? where did he go?? paired with the conditioning.. i would really like to see our guards using there left hands on layups vs. a miraculous spin or crazy throw up. these kids got some game experience this year.. but i can’t say their fundamentals were developed at all??!!

    i liked the brief spurts of fire from lorenzo brown when he became more involved with running the offense.. can’t wait to see him especially with a proper coach at the helm!

    i think SFN has done a good job with the discussions so far with the coaching search. with what DY has said and the conversation here.. it seems we all have our wish list and a confidence that a good hire will be made!!

  13. Wolfy__79 03/20/2011 at 2:54 PM #

    i’m not a big few fan. i think he’s definetly a good coach.. one question i have is, do we really think stevens can really navigate the acc? he seems to be a real competitor with the iq to do so.. his record in the ncaas certainly speaks for itself.. but that would be my question as far as him go head to head with roy,k,gay, and the like in th acc and winning/learning/building?!!

  14. otisthetowndrunk 03/20/2011 at 3:14 PM #

    The flying to Gville SC, while funny is not unheard of. My brother-in-law was flying home to G.Ville NC, and got a ticket SC. The ticket agent made the mistake, that is because no one flies to G.ville NC compared to SC. It is just too close to RDU, and not worth the extra money unless you connect out of Charlotte.

  15. ADVENTUROO 03/20/2011 at 3:30 PM #

    According to Valvano’s tale in his audio book, when he landed in Greenville – Spartansburg, SC, he was decked out in a Red Blazer, a 10″ wide Wolfpack Tie with Wolfheads so big that you could read NCSU on their hat’s at 50 yards and a pair of CHECKED pants. He said that the ticket agent called the local TV station and they did a piece on him. I had heard that before and he talked about it in his Reynold’s farewell speech. They DID break the mold when he died….somehow that passing impacted me almost as loosing my parents and my in-laws. He was truly unique.

    If you ever see his audio book on ebay or Amazon….BUY IT. IT is great….pure humor and his “insight” on the firing. He actually was approached by a homeless man early one morning when he was cleaning out his office. He called security and they thought HE was imagining things, but a cleaning lady told them that a man matching that description had been in the building several times during the past week….

    There is also a complete history of how he became a “highly paid” kid’s BB Summer Camp speaker and earned 10X MORE than just the coaches running the clinic. His “take a charge” story is classic…and he just goes ON and ON…hard to believe he is dead. Especially, since we see him so many times during the NCAA tournament.

    It was obvious that we did not pay him the big bucks he was expecting….he told Willis Casey that he wanted the “opportunity” so he got it….and a small raise. That probably negatively motivated him…as HE SAID….and the outcome was not pretty….that is when he got in over his head.

    Really great stuff…..especially if you are a 1983 fan.

    Still waiting for White Smoke from the Bell Tower…..has Few been called? Is he on his way to Raleigh?….PURE SPECULATION, so don’t pounce on this….waiting for the Barnes-Miller clash….will pull for Rick.

  16. PackerInRussia 03/20/2011 at 4:45 PM #

    Hey Boyd, no worries! And yes, it was sarcasm. I liked how the person who made that original comment painted playing Duke & UNC as a plus and something recruits might like instead of the way it’s usually portrayed. I just chose a roundabout way to express that 🙂

  17. MP 03/20/2011 at 5:12 PM #

    Very good post. Maybe it is true that Rick Barnes received the first offer as ‘reported’ yesterday. However, if I’m Rick Barnes the last thing I want is to potentially hear about NC State message board chatter that someone ‘close to the program’ spilled the beans to ‘Strutter’ over dinner… just so she could pile onto blogs and let everyone know she ‘has a secret’… which she then spilled within 10 minutes.

    Maybe Barnes is our guy. But something doesn’t smell right. Considering the way things went down 5 years ago, I would think he holds his integrity pretty highly and doesn’t want to think he’s dealing with a bunch of hoohas that really can’t keep a damn secret.

  18. highstick 03/20/2011 at 6:27 PM #

    Newsflash! Check the news guys…Our new coach is Larry Lakins!

  19. mak4dpak 03/20/2011 at 7:20 PM #

    Hey guys lets get over the need to have a coach from a big time school to have success. Jimmy V/Iona, Coach K/Army, just a few examples. Check out the resume, a see what it there, and that should help decide the verdict even if it is not a big time school. We may find that sleeper out there who needs the chance to move up, and prove he can compete. Certainly would not cost so much either.

  20. LRM 03/20/2011 at 7:25 PM #

    ^No one is arguing otherwise. But why not start with someone that has already proven themselves?

  21. jwrenn29 03/20/2011 at 8:07 PM #

    It’s things like this article that label us as the lunatic fringe. I would be shocked out of my gourd if Rick Barnes would take our job over being head man at Texas. Currently, it would be a step down, and usually head coaches’ egos won’t let them do that.

  22. wolfbuff 03/20/2011 at 8:09 PM #

    Texas just lost in a crazy finish. We’ll see now.

  23. MattN 03/20/2011 at 8:17 PM #

    We’re going to find out real soon if Strutter is right or not…

  24. ADVENTUROO 03/20/2011 at 8:17 PM #

    Well now….wasn’t THAT an exciting finish. Who outcoached who? Don’t know….if Mr. Barnes or Mr. Few or Mr. Dixon or Mr. Wright (sorry Tubby, but I just can’t picture you here….no offense…) don’t show up in Red in Raleigh next week, then we MIGHT know that Dr. Yow has her sights set on a young fellow that once coached here. Twill be interesting to see how Mr. Miller does against old Grumpy, Coach K. Of course there’s the young kid from Gainesville, but I think that even the King’s Ransome that Dr. You promised will be a bit weak…

    GO PACK….the madness continues….and it does have SOMETHING to do with Basketball….

  25. Old MacDonald 03/20/2011 at 8:40 PM #

    What is your obsession with Few? It is bordering on unstable. There is no reason to think he would be interested in us or that we are in him.

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