Tennessee basketball's Rick Barnes receives congratulations on 800th win from noteworthy coaches
Rick Barnes reached his 800th career win on Saturday night inside the Food City Center at Thompson-Boling Arena in emphatic fashion, as the Vols steamrolled Texas A&M 86-51 in front of a national audience. With the win, Barnes became the second active coach with 800 wins, along with Kentucky's John Calipari. He also became just […]
Rick Barnes reached his 800th career win on Saturday night inside the Food City Center at Thompson-Boling Arena in emphatic fashion, as the Vols steamrolled Texas A&M 86-51 in front of a national audience.
With the win, Barnes became the second active coach with 800 wins, along with Kentucky's John Calipari. He also became just the fifteenth coach in history to reach the mark.
After the game, the Tennessee basketball Twitter/X account posted a video in which coaches from around the country offered up their congratulations, including many of the biggest names in the history of the sport.
Roy Williams, who has 903 career wins, and Barnes faced off going back to the 1990s, when Barnes was at Texas and Williams was at Kansas. The two would face off many more times over the years with Williams at UNC and Barnes moving on to Tennessee.
Williams notes, "you've always been an amazing friend. The most amazing things, two old boys from the mountains, talking like these numbers. The numbers that I thought me and you would be on would be on the post office wall, big boy. Congratulations to you. I love watching your teams play. You always have and always will be a great friend."
Kentucky's John Calipari, who currently has 851 wins, said "you've done it everywhere you've been. You were an unbelievable assistant coach, and now as a head coach, all the places you've stopped, you've changed them. You've elevated. You've also taken care of kids. The impact you've had on young people. So beyond the 800 wins, let me just say – I say this over and over – if I were trying to rebuild, start a program, create a culture, one guy you hire, Rick Barnes. He's done it every stop of the way, and he's done it the right way. Congrats, my friend."
Bill Self had a lighthearted message for Barnes, noting, "congratulations on win number 800. A, it means you're old. And B, if you hadn't been coaching against me for many of those, then you'd probably be stuck around 750 right now. Congrats."
But Michigan State's Tom Izzo had perhaps the most encouraging comment of all regarding Barnes and his current team. "I want to say congratulations ahead of time. Get that win. But remember, this is a year that I really believe you have a chance to win it all."
Barnes' longevity speaks to his success as a head coach, as do the resurrections of the two basketball programs that he's known for: Texas and Tennessee. Barnes' shortcomings in March are unavoidable, but there's no doubt that both the Longhorns and Volunteers on his watch have made massive strides forward as a program.
Barnes has assembled and molded an incredible team this season, and it would be fitting to end a long-running narrative about his postseason woes in the same year that he notched win number 800.
It sounds like he has some noteworthy individuals pulling for him to do just that.
Tennessee fans clap back at chant from Texas A&M at the end of Vols’ win on Saturday
Turnabout was fair play on Saturday night in Knoxville
