Non-conference scheduling a priority for Barnes at Tennessee

Back when Rick Barnes was the head coach at Providence, his team was narrowly left out of the NCAA Tournament due to a weak strength of schedule.

In the over thirty years since then, Barnes has made it a point for that never to happen to a team he coaches again.

Barnes says he has already been in talks with college basketball powers North Carolina, Maryland, and Gonzaga for future games.

"There's an art to scheduling," Barnes said at the Big Orange Tipoff Club in late April. "The bottom line is we don't ever want to be in a position that what we do in the non-league affects what happens in postseason play.

“We don't ever want to be in that situation.”

In addition to regular season non-conference games, Barnes confirmed that Tennessee will still be participating in the Barclays Center Classic in Brooklyn during Thanksgiving week.

Cincinnati, Nebraska, and George Washington are the other teams in that tournament.

As for scheduling other future non-conference games, Barnes cited it being beneficial for the team, as well as the fans.

"We've got to make it not only what's good for us, but the fans,” Barnes said. “They deserve to have a team that is willing to play anybody, any place, anywhere."

While coaching at Texas, Barnes backed up his talk of strong non-league scheduling.

In his last season at Texas alone, the Longhorns played Kentucky, Iowa, Connecticut, and Stanford.

Playing these teams, even though Texas went 2-2 against them, helped propel the Longhorns from the NCAA Tournament bubble into the field of 68.

"If you're going to be a national program, you've got to play a national schedule," Barnes said. "You've got to be willing to go north, south, east, west and want to play the very best.

"We want to bring the big teams in here. We want to do that, because it changes the perception. Once you get good, playing that schedule gets easier."

One of the “big teams” that Barnes would love to play is Memphis.

Barnes has already contacted Tigers’ head coach Josh Pastner about renewing the series that ended in 2013.

In the past, Memphis has been opposed to renewing the series because it gives Tennessee recruiting exposure in the Memphis area.

But with or without Memphis, Barnes will have Tennessee playing a tough non-conference schedule that won’t put them at a disadvantage come Selection Sunday.

"I think players, I think fans – we all like the build-up of big games, and I don't think now because of the way the NCAA [selection] committee, they really work at this,” Barnes said. “The one thing they do frown on is teams who don't compete and play a hard schedule.”

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