The Texas A&M men’s basketball team upset No. 6 Tennessee on Saturday night at Reed Arena 85-69.
Unlike the Aggies’ other Top 10 win from earlier this season in overtime against No. 6 Kentucky, the margin of victory was decisive. However, if you ask Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes, the game’s outcome was swayed by Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams accidentally entering the court during live play.
“Absolutely should have been a technical foul. Absolutely, 100%,” Barnes said Monday night during Vol Calls, the exclusive statewide radio show for Tennessee Athletics. “Tobe (Awaka) avoided him. I’m going to put a new drill in. Anytime you see a coach on the floor, you have to run over him. You have to hit him. Don’t avoid him. That was a ridiculous play.
“That’s a blatant technical foul and you’ve got to call it. They just said they’d take care of it, but they had already been warned about being out of the box and all sorts of things. It’s just a missed call.”
In the spirit of continuing to disregard the fact that the final score was separated by 16 points, Barnes continued his rant.
“If officials don’t do their job in that situation and they let one coach start doing this or that, it’s going to wake up the other coach and they’re going to have their hands full,” Barnes said. “From the beginning, if you just make it clear — and I don’t think any coach has a problem when you gotta walk out of the box to get closer to halfcourt to maybe have your team hear you or something. I don’t think that, but you can’t be on the court. If you feel like someone is constantly abusing it, because I know this, they won’t let that happen in the NCAA Tournament. Believe me. When the tournament rolls around, the one thing they say (is), ‘You’ve got to stay in the box. You’ve got to stay in the box.’ They’re adamant about it.”
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