Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes nominated for Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
Rick Barnes was nominated Thursday for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for the first time.
The Tennessee basketball coach, who has won almost 800 games, is in his ninth season with the Vols and his 37th as a college basketball head coach.
Barnes, 69, has elevated Tennessee to its best standing in program history. UT has made five straight NCAA Tournaments and earned a top-four seed four times. It has won at least 25 games four times and been ranked in the top-10 of the Associated Press poll 43 times in his tenure, which included a four-week stretch at No. 1 in the 2018-19 season.
Barnes is 183-95 overall and 86-56 in SEC play during his time at Tennessee.
What is Rick Barnes' Hall of Fame résumé?
Barnes has reached the NCAA Tournament 27 times and led Texas to the 2003 Final Four. He has won four conference titles and two conference tournament championships, including the 2018 SEC regular-season title and 2022 SEC Tournament title. He has won six conference coach of the year awards and two national coach of the year awards in 2019.
The native of Hickory, North Carolina, has a 787-409 overall record. He is No. 15 in all-time wins in Division I after UT's 8-3 start to the season. His 787 wins are second-most among active coaches. Ten of the 14 coaches with more wins than Barnes are in the Hall of Fame. All eight coaches with more than 831 wins are in the Hall.
Barnes began his head coaching career at George Mason in the 1987-88 season. He was at Providence from 1988 to 1994 and at Clemson from 1994 to 1998. He spent 17 seasons at Texas from 1998 to 2015. He was hired at Tennessee in April 2015.
He has produced 32 NBA draft picks, including seven at UT (three of them first-rounders).
Barnes was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2023, and also is a member of the Lenoir-Rhyne College Hall of Fame, which he was inducted into in 2022. He graduated from Lenoir-Rhyne in 1977.
Who was nominated for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame along with Rick Barnes?
Barnes is one of the first-time nominees in the class that also has: NBA and North Carolina star Vince Carter; LSU and WNBA great Seimone Augustus; Detroit Pistons forward Bill Laimbeer; ex-NBA coach and commentator Mike Fratello; and the 2008 U.S. Olympic men's basketball team.
The finalists for the 2024 class will be announced Feb. 16, and the class will be announced April 6 during the Final Four in Phoenix. The induction ceremony will take place Aug. 17 at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
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Legendary UT forward Bernard King is the lone Vols men's representative in the Naismith Hall of Fame. He was inducted in 2013. Iconic coach Pat Summitt (2000) and forward Tamika Catchings (2020) are the Lady Vols representatives.
Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @ByMikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee basketball's Rick Barnes nominated for Naismith Hall of Fame
