As Rick Barnes' salary rises, Tennessee basketball fans should have Final Four expectations

The relationship between Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes and many UT fans won’t be the same after this week. That's not just because Barnes said if UCLA had paid his buyout, he would be coaching the Bruins next season.

UT still should be grateful that it won’t have to begin a coaching search. Its track record for hiring basketball coaches has been hit-and-miss — mostly miss. And fans should be grateful Barnes backed away from the UCLA job — regardless of why.

Never mind if Barnes' decision came down to money and not an intense loyalty for Tennessee. There’s nothing unusual about that. Most coaching decisions are based on money.

The oddity: Barnes was brutally honest about his decision.

You expect coaches to follow the money. You don’t expect them to be brutally honest.

That’s why so many media-types commented on Barnes’ candid response.  

They found it surprising and refreshing. Many fans won’t see it that way.

They rejoice in how Barnes has rebuilt UT’s basketball program in four years. His past two teams have won a combined 57 games, and the 2018-19 team tied a school record with a 31-win season.

But fans don’t rejoice in hearing a coach say he was on the verge of going somewhere else.

To its credit, UT kept Barnes by offering him a better deal. We don't know the details yet, but the new contract could make Barnes one of the highest-paid college basketball coaches in the country.

Last September, Barnes signed a new contract, which upped his salary to $3.25 million for the 2018-19 season.  That ranked 14th nationally, according to USA TODAY's list of coaching contracts.

As Barnes' salary increases, so will the expectations.

However, greater expectations would have come anyway, even if UCLA and Barnes hadn’t crossed paths. UT basketball has been on the rise for four consecutive seasons under Barnes. Fans will expect it to keep going up. That’s just how sports work.

Before the UCLA job became a topic of conversation, a Tennessee fan emailed me. He was ambivalent about the 31-win season.

“What did we actually win?” he asked. “We didn’t win the SEC regular-season championship. We didn’t win the SEC Tournament championship. We didn’t make the Final Four.”  

In his previous job, Barnes was fired after leading Texas to 16 NCAA Tournaments in 17 seasons. His postseason success didn’t match his regular-season success. None of his last seven Texas teams advanced beyond the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Vols were eliminated in the Sweet 16 this past season by an overtime loss to Purdue. The year before, they lost by a point to Loyola Chicago in the second round.

That shouldn’t diminish what Barnes has accomplished at Tennessee.

His team was ranked No. 1 nationally for four weeks, and Barnes was honored as the Naismith coach of the year for 2018-19.  Such success is why UCLA wanted to hire him and why Tennessee did everything it could to keep him.

But that's also why Tennessee fans will expect deeper runs in the NCAA Tournament.

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: twitter.com/johnadamskns