Tennessee Basketball: Rick Barnes still recruiting for 2019 class
You would think with it being June; Rick Barnes would be recruiting for the 2020 class. That’s not the case as he is still working on the 2019 class.
A few days ago reports came out that Rick Barnes was still recruiting Virginia Tech transfer, Kerry Blackshear. The Vols join Arkansas, Florida, Texas A&M, Kentucky and Gonzaga competing for Blackshear’s talents, according to Jeff Goodman on Twitter.
Another school involved in the Kerry Blackshear recruitment is Arkansas, sources told @Stadium. Blackshear visited Florida today, Texas A&M and Kentucky in the mix. Gonzaga and Tennessee also trying, per sources.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) June 6, 2019
Blackshear is a grad transfer, so he will be eligible to play immediately. With Tennessee bringing in a couple of transfers who might not be eligible for 2019-20 Blackshear might be very valuable.
The only problem is the Vols currently have all 13 scholarships filled with the most recent transfer Victor Bailey Jr. joining the Vols at the end of May. Uros Plavsic is currently seeking a waiver from the NCAA, but neither Plavsic nor Bailey is guaranteed to play in 2019.
This isn’t too uncommon with transfers, but Barnes has also just offered a scholarship to a player in the 2019 class.
Josaphat Bilau has received an offer from Barnes and the Vols, and not only is it a little late to be offering a guy in the 2019 class, but he also has zero stars according to 247Sports. Bilau has some offers from lower-level D-1 programs but no one even close to Tennessee’s level.
So why in the world would Rick Barnes be looking at a no-star player in the 2019 class when there aren’t any scholarships available? He’s already trying to get Blackshear to Knoxville, why do we need Bilau?
Bilau is also a forward, and if there is something Tennessee doesn’t need, it’s more forwards. The Vols need guards, but Barnes continues to go after forwards.
Barnes has had some flaws exposed over the past calendar year or so, and this recruiting mess is just another one of those flaws. I don’t expect this to happen every year or even every few years. It should never happen, which is why I am unsure of Barnes’ current recruiting methods.
He gets paid like John Calipari and Coach K, yet we never see either of those two coaches do these things in the middle of the summer. If Barnes is going to get paid like an elite coach, he needs to start acting like one too, and that includes not offering zero-star, basketball players.
I like Barnes I really do, but it seems like he is messing up too much recently. I know he’s a good coach and a good recruiter, but I feel like things are slowly starting to decline. He still recruited a solid 2019 class without this, but I just don’t understand why Barnes would want a guy like Bilau and why would he offer him in June.
Middle schooler commits to Vols. dark. Next
If the Vols can get back to the tournament next season and Barnes brings in a top-10 class, all this goes away, and we are all praising him for how great of a coach he is. Barnes could also continue to fall apart with his in-game coaching and slowly slide downhill as Butch Jones did in 2016 and 2017 after he got a contract extension for underachieving in 2015.