 "Photo: Caleb Miller/The Daily Texan")
Editor’s Note: For the next week, The Daily Texan will highlight the best coaches on the 40 Acres and debate who reigns supreme atop the Texas coaching conglomerate.
Before the Rick Barnes era of Texas basketball, the Longhorns had only reached the NCAA tournament 16 times.
Since Tom Penders’ departure of and Barnes’ subsequent arrival 11 years ago, Texas has solidified itself as a perennial contender for the Big 12 Championship, becoming accustomed to dancing deep into March.
Barnes took what was historically thought of as just a football school and churned out a strong basketball program that has made it to the NCAA tournament 11 consecutive times.
But the coaching process begins before the NCAA tournament tips off and even before training camp starts. It first happens on the recruiting stage, years before any basketball is played.
Yes, Barnes has brought in the likes of Kevin Durant, T.J. Ford and LaMarcus Aldridge, but his impact goes far beyond the elite prospects that he has been able to reel into Austin. By consistently bringing in a strong supporting cast to complement the superstars, Barnes has made Longhorn basketball the best it has ever been in its 103-year history.
He recruits deep and transforms players into exactly what he thinks the team needs. While opposing coaches have their whole game plans set on the superstar, Barnes will hit them with a Royal Ivey, Kenton Paulino or Justin Mason.
In 2003, when the Longhorns made it to their first final four since 1947, Barnes built his team around Ford, Texas’ All-American point guard.
He put together a system of perimeter players like Brandon Mouton, Brian Boddicker and Sydmill Harris, and big men James Thomas and Brad Buckman, who Ford would dish to for easy dunks.
Barnes bases his style of coaching on his players. If his first plan does not work, then he will always have a backup and another one after that.
This was used most often last season.
When A.J. Abrams was cold from the field, Varez Ward would attempt to penetrate to the basket. When Mason was having trouble protecting the ball, Dogus Balbay would be the primary ball-handler. And when Connor Atchley could not even get a shot off, they would feed Dexter Pittman.
Barnes takes players who are not expected to do much and turns them into vital weapons.
When determining who is the best coach at the University of Texas, it is misleading just to look at championships won.
You must look at adjustments made within games and improvements made between them. You examine how much better a team finishes a season than it starts. And you look at how each player has improved from day one.
In the long, grueling basketball season, there will be highs and lows, but Barnes knows how to handle every situation.
When all is said and done, Rick Barnes wins basketball games. He is able to lead his team back from a 20-point deficit, but he also knows how to maintain a 20-point lead.
But best of all: He is loyal.
Unlike football, baseball, swimming and track and field, Texas basketball is not the cream of the crop of historical programs. But Barnes does not care, as he has turned down offers from some of the most prestigious basketball programs in the country.
Barnes has done more for basketball in Texas than anyone before him. Texas basketball was nothing to be proud of before the Barnes era. But now, every March we expect to see the Longhorns make a run deep into the Big Dance.
In the discussion of best coach at Texas, Barnes’ name deserves to be up there as the best.
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