Coach Barnes’ Hot Seat Cooling Down?

Austin has experienced an unusually cold winter, but Texas men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes hasn’t exactly needed to use the seat-warming function in his SUV.

The coach has been on the proverbial hot seat for several years, ever since his Longhorns began making a nasty habit of losing in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Barnes guided Texas to the top of the polls as recently as [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] January, 2010. That team sat 17-0 after beating Texas A&M in overtime but then lost 10 of 17 games to finish the season, including an 81-80 loss to Wake Forest in the NCAA Tournament opening round.

The Longhorns rebounded in 2010-11, finishing 28-8 and winning their opening round game before falling in the closing seconds to Arizona in the NCAA second round. But that Texas team, led by NBA players Jordan Hamilton, Tristan Thompson, Cory Joseph and Damion James, still lost five of its last 10 games.

Texas’ struggles returned in 2011-12, where the team finished 20-14 and lost to Cincinnati in 65-59 in the NCAA opening round. That team lost five of its last eight games.

Heading into the 2012-13 season, Texas fans wanted more. In particular, they wanted Barnes, who’d been bringing top talent to Austin regularly, to guide that talent deeper into March. Or else.

Texas’ performance last season only made things worse. The Longhorns struggled for a variety of reasons, and players and coach clashed seemingly constantly, none more visible than those of Barnes and Sheldon McClellan, the team’s top scorer who would explode for 25 points one night and get banished to the end of the bench the next. Texas finished 16-18, missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in Barnes’ tenure and suffered the indignity of losing at Houston in the opening round of the College Basketball Invitational.

The vitriol surrounding Barnes only grew, and most wondered if 2013-14 would be his last in Austin if he couldn’t turn things around, a feat many pundits saw as challenging at best given that Texas lost its top four scorers and had another player transfer as well. In a piece for Sports Illustrated, Pete Thamel quoted a high-ranking Texas official saying he doubted Barnes could turn the program around. League coaches and media picked Texas to finish eighth in the conference. Hardly reason for optimism.

Barnes’ name sat atop many a list of coaches on the hot seat, including Athlon Sports, SB Nation, and ESPN offshoot Grantland.

But a funny thing happened on Barnes’ trip from frying pan to fire. Texas started winning. The wins came neither easily nor impressively early, but since Texas lost at Oklahoma State on Jan. 8, the Longhorns have won five in a row, including three eye-openers over ranked teams. Heading into Saturday’s game with Kansas – a fourth straight game against a ranked opponent, Texas sits at 16-4 overall, 5-2 in Big 12 play. The win total matches last year’s season total, and the Horns sit two wins away from matching last year’s conference win total. Talk of Texas in the NCAA tournament doesn’t presently include the word bubble.

People have taken notice, not just of the Horns’ performance but of the job Barnes has done returning Texas to the top half of the conference standings.

Following wins over Texas Tech and West Virginia, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Drew Davison noticed that Barnes seems to be more energetic this season. His colleague Jimmy Burch noticed more following the Horns’ fifth straight win, 74-60 last Saturday at Baylor.

“…Saturday marked the latest example that Barnes’ addition-by-subtraction formula is working wonders this season,” he wrote.

CBS Sports’ Garry Parrish watched Texas’ 74-60 win at Baylor. He saw that eighth-place team assert its will on a team that had been ranked as high as seventh in the polls this season.

“But the great thing about each college basketball season is that some coaches always do more with some rosters than anybody expected, and, at the moment, Barnes is one of those coaches,” he wrote, adding that Barnes has inserted himself into the conversation for Big 12 coach of the year, an award he won last won in 2008.

Yahoo! Sports’ Jeff Eisenberg shares Parrish’s opinion. Citing Texas’ win streak against ranked teams and a win at North Carolina, Eisenberg has had to give second thought to Barnes’ claim that the roster change amounted to addition by subtraction.

“Those are pretty impressive accomplishments from a program many thought was on the decline and a coach many believed was past his prime,” he wrote.

Another cold snap is expected in Austin next week. As his coaching seat cools, Barnes may yet find himself reaching for those seat-warmers.

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Question for the fans: How has the Longhorn team impressed you this season? Sound off below.

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