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Rick Barnes joins elite coaching group with Tennessee’s win over Texas A&M
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Rick Barnes has been at this coaching thing for a long time, and his teams have regularly been among the top teams in the country. When that happens, you’re bound to play in some key matchups, which Tennessee did again on Saturday.
Facing Texas A&M, the Vols were in another top-10 matchup this season with Tennessee at No. 6 and A&M at No. 7. It was Tennessee’s 4th game of the season against a top-10 opponent, and it goes down as Rick Barnes’s 50th career win against an AP Top 10 team.
According to SEC Network analyst Cole Cubelic, that makes Barnes just the 11th coach in DI history to notch at least 50 top-10 victories. It’s not hard to see Barnes getting to that mark in a coaching career that began in the late 1980s at George Mason.
With Saturday’s win against the Aggies, Tennessee is now 2-2 against top 10 teams this season. The Vols lost on the road to Florida and Auburn but beat Florida at home. Alabama, Tennessee’s opponent on March 1, is still ranked No. 4 nationally and is likely to give the Vols a 5th top-10 foe.
Tennessee is still 3.5 games behind SEC-leading Auburn, so the regular-season title is essentially out of the question for the Vols, but a double bye in the SEC Basketball Tournament is still within reach. You can track the latest title odds for the Vols with bet365, and use the bet365 TN bonus code for all the best offers.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
