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re: UT Basketball Discussion -- UT: 16-15 (8-10) Final reg. Season
Posted on 5/12/15 at 7:02 pm to TRUERockyTop
Posted on 5/12/15 at 7:02 pm to TRUERockyTop
Some interesting talking points from Rob Lewis on Rob Lanier, Des Oliver, and the perception of UT basketball.
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One of the more intriguing things from the day was listening to Rob Lanier talk about the perception of this job from the outside and what he's learned about the program and the fan base since being here for a month. He is amazed and very pleasantly surprised at the passion and support he has found here. As an assistant coach at Florida under Billy D. Lanier obviously knew about the facilities and the campus but he indicated he had been blown away by the support from the fans.
I asked him for some examples of that and he pointed out that since leaving Texas, which is a prominent program in his own right, his amount of Twitter followers has tripled.
He went to make a great point that at Texas and Florida fans pay attention to basketball when it's good, and he added that he felt that both Barnes and Donovan had 'put a dent' in the perception of hoops at those two schools. However, in his mind, what Tennessee has that neither of those places have is a built in passion for hoops from a percentage of the fanbase that is present no matter what. His point was, you can't manufacture that. Really perceptive guy that is a lot of fun to talk to.
A lot of people know that he and Des Oliver are really good friends working together for the first time professionally. They were each the best man at the other's wedding and have known each other for over 30 years, starting as children in Buffalo. Lanier had a great story that shed some light on their roots, explaining that his family didn't have a phone, so when he was being recruited college coaches would call Oliver's house to leave messages and set up meetings.
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Posted on 5/13/15 at 12:19 pm to TRUERockyTop
From Brent Hubbs. Barnes on wanting to kick start the series with Memphis again.
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"I think it's extremely important. For our state, for the fans," said Hart. "I just feel strongly we've got to do all we can to get that (annual Memphis) game moving again, and I'm not talking one or two games. Get that series from a long-term perspective, see if we can't get it back.
"Tom's been great in our conversations. We just need to see where Josh is, and Rick's going to handle that end of things and then we'll see what happens."
Barnes elaborated on the Gonzaga series and also stressed a desire for an annual meeting with the intrastate rival Tigers.
"We're working out the deal with Gonzaga. This year we'll have to go there, and again, Mark Few who I have great respect for, we scrimmaged them every year that I was at Texas once we were able to start scrimmaging, and we've either met in Denver or Arizona, we've met somewhere and we've scrimmaged. We're going to play, and he has a tournament up there in Seattle, Battle in Seattle. Think it's around (December) 20th. They'll return it back to Nashville (in 2016)," Barnes said. "I would not be opposed to playing a game here in Atlanta. I would love to get the series going with Memphis every year. If there's a way we can play in Memphis, we need to play in areas where we have alumni.
"And also we want to make sure we're playing in areas we're going to recruit. Whether it be on the East Coast … once you get it going, TV becomes such a big part of our schedule because they're going to want to start to put matchups together. It's important we have the kind of success that people want to play and TV would want to put us in."
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